Short-Fetch High Waves During the Passage of 2019 Typhoon Faxai Over Tokyo Bay
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Front. Earth Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-021-0872-2 RESEARCH ARTICLE Short-fetch high waves during the passage of 2019 Typhoon Faxai over Tokyo Bay Hiroshi TAKAGI (✉), Atsuhei TAKAHASHI School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan © Higher Education Press 2021 Abstract The risk of wind waves in a bay is often 1 Introduction overlooked, owing to the belief that peninsulas and islands will inhibit high waves. However, during the passage of a In the metropolitan area of Japan, two out of the ten most tropical cyclone, a semi-enclosed bay is exposed to two- populated regions in the world are located — the Greater directional waves: one generated inside the bay and the Tokyo (#1) and Greater Osaka (#10) regions, with a total other propagated from the outer sea. Typhoon Faxai in population of 37 million and 19 million, respectively 2019 resulted in the worst coastal disaster in Tokyo Bay in (United Nations, 2018). Both cities are situated in semi- the last few decades. The authors conducted a post-disaster closed bays, steadily expanding over the last several survey immediately after this typhoon. Numerical model- centuries. The natural breakwater system by the peninsulas ing was also performed to reveal the mechanisms of and the inner-bay islands greatly contributed to the creation fi unusual high waves. No signi cant high-wave damage of a calm waterfront, providing huge benefits for human fi occurred on coasts facing the Paci c Ocean. By contrast, society, particularly for industrial development. However, Fukuura-Yokohama, which faces Tokyo Bay, suffered both Tokyo Bay and Osaka Bay recently experienced the overtopping waves that collapsed seawalls. To precisely severe impact of strong typhoons. Typhoon Jebi hit Osaka reproduce multi-directional waves, the authors developed Bay on September 4, 2018, causing severe damage to an extended parametric typhoon model, which was Greater Osaka, Japan’s second-largest economic region. In embedded in the JMA mesoscale meteorological model addition to the impact on urban infrastructure over the (JMA-MSM). The peak wave height was estimated to be broad areas along the path of the typhoon, the strong winds 3.4 m off the coast of Fukuura, in which the contribution of generated high waves and storm surges, resulting in %– % the outer-sea waves was as low as 10 20 . A fetch- historical economic damage (approximately 168 million limited wave developed over a short distance in the bay is US dollars) on the port and coastal infrastructure (Fig. 1(a)) considered the primary mechanism of the high wave. The (Takabatake et al., 2018; Le et al., 2019; Mori et al., 2019). maximum wave occurred on the left-hand side of the On September 9, 2019, Typhoon Faxai hit Greater typhoon track in the bay, which appears to be contrary to Tokyo, the nation’s largest economic region, and pro- the common understanding that it is safer within the ceeded directly above Tokyo Bay. Although the storm semicircle of a storm than on the opposite side. Typhoon surge was relatively minor, locally concentrated waves Faxai was a small typhoon; however, if the radius was caused significant damage in a particular area on the tripled, it is estimated that the wave height would exceed western shore of Tokyo Bay (Suzuki et al., 2020). As a 3 m over the entire bay and surpass 4 m off the coasts of consequence of the failure of the coastal dike (Fig. 1(b)), Yokohama and Chiba. an industrial zone in Yokohama was extensively flooded, resulting in the suspension of several hundred factories. Keywords Typhoon Faxai, Tokyo Bay, high waves, short Typhoon Faxai caused the greatest coastal disaster in fetch, overtopping, wave hindcasting, parametric typhoon, Tokyo Bay since the development of the waterfront in JMA-MSM, storm surge Japan’s high-growth period (the mid-1950s to the early- 1970s) (Takagi et al., 2020a; Yamamoto et al., 2020). Tokyo Bay consists of an inner bay and an outer bay, and has a total area of 1380 km2 (in this study, the inner bay is Received August 18, 2020; accepted January 5, 2021 mainly focused). The bay mouth separating the inner from E-mail: [email protected] the outer bay is only 7 km apart at its narrowest section. 2 Front. Earth Sci. Fig. 1 (a) Failure of the coastal dike in Osaka, caused by high waves due to 2018 Typhoon Jebi (photo taken by the author); (b) Damage in Yokohama, due to 2019 Typhoon Faxai (photo courtesy of Port & Harbor Bureau, City of Yokohama). The risk of high waves is often overlooked because it is collected on ships using visual inspection, contributing to believed that two peninsulas work as an effective natural the determination of a relationship between wind speed, breakwater (Solomon, 2016). However, a remarkably high wave height, and wave period. Stevenson (1874) proposed wave was generated when Faxai proceeded over the bay. a simple prediction of wave height that is solely Table 1 shows the rank of the high wave observed at Tokyo proportional to the square root of the fetch; meanwhile, Port, demonstrating that the wave recorded during Faxai Molitor (1935) introduced wind speed into an empirical was the highest over the past five decades. A wave over wave-forecasting formula. The modern study of ocean 3 m is not necessarily rare in the Pacific Ocean; however, it surface waves started with a pioneer study by Sverdrup and has taken place only three times in Tokyo Bay in the past Munk (1947). They proposed a forecasting method for four decades. The other two high-wave events were also fetch- and duration-limited waves, which was later revised caused by typhoons, Irma in 1985 and Danas in 2001. Irma by Bretschneider (1951) with the addition of much field may not simply be compared with Faxai, as Irma did not data. Thus, their forecast is collectively called the SMB take the course above Tokyo Bay. However, Danas and method, using the initial from each author. Wilson (1965) Faxai proceeded in a similar route over Tokyo Bay at the further advanced this empirical model by considering the same speed. According to Islam and Takagi (2020a), the development of waves during severe winter storms. average forward speed of past typhoons, which impacted Meanwhile, a statistical description of ocean waves has Tokyo Bay, was estimated to be 46 km/h. Thus, these two been investigated using a wave spectrum, since Pierson typhoons moved slowly at approximately half the speed of and Moskowitz (1964) proposed a spectrum shape, known the averaged typhoon. In terms of size, Faxai and Danas as the Pierson–Moskowitz spectrum. can be classified as small typhoons, with the 50-knot wind This spectrum was derived based on the assumption that speed radius (R50) being smaller than 100 km (Table 1). waves will reach an equilibrium state if the wind steadily A slow-moving, small typhoon would have a different blows for a long period over a large area. However, an impact on storm surge in the bay compared with a fast- early wave tends to be smaller than that in a fully moving, large typhoon. A recent statistical study using developed sea while containing a steep spectral peak. To long-term tidal records suggests that fast-moving typhoons consider an important mechanism to enhance the growth of tend to amplify storm surges in open coasts but reduce early wind waves, the JONSWAP group introduced them in semi-enclosed bays (Islam and Takagi, 2020b). nonlinear interactions among wind-generated waves into The amplification of storm surges may also be pronounced the spectrum (Hasselmann et al., 1973). Mitsuyasu (1972) through resonance mechanisms when coinciding with also proposed one-dimensional wave spectra for a limited atmospheric disturbances, such as gravity waves, frontal fetch F, which approaches the Pierson–Moskowitz ¼ F=u2 passages, pressure jumps, and squalls, with similar periods spectrum at the dimensionless fetch ( g *)of 7 in long waves such as storm surges (Monserrat et al., approximately 10 (g and u* are the gravitational accelera- 2006), sometimes leading to devastating currents (Heidar- tion and the friction velocity of wind, respectively.). zadeh and Rabinovich, 2020). In addition to maximum wind velocity, various factors, However, the mechanism of wave intensification is not such as the forward speed of the system, radius of necessarily the same as that of storm surges. The growth of maximum wind speed, and fetch length, play important wind waves has been extensively studied for at least a roles in determining the development of waves (Bowyer century. In the early days, field data of ocean waves were and MacAfee, 2005; Hwang and Walsh, 2018). Observa- Hiroshi TAKAGI and Atsuhei TAKAHASHI. Short-fetch high waves developed inside bay 3 Table 1 Historical typhoons that hit Tokyo Bay # Year Case TY: TY name Wave height/m Wave period/s Storm surge/m Landfall location from Approach angle relative Forward speed Radius of R50 Max 10-min /Month typhoon Harumi Station, central bay axis to coastline at landfall at landfall/km sustained wind ‒ /Day WS: winter Tokyo (degree in clockwise /(km$h 1) speed at landfall – storm direction) /(m$s 1) SS: spring storm 1 2019/9/9 TY Faxai 3.39 7.1 1.01 over Tokyo Bay 135 24 93 41 2 1985/7/1 TY Irma 3.09 4.2 1.2 80 km 130 69 232 33 (southwest) 3 2001/9/11 TY Danas 3.09 7.4 1.12 over Tokyo Bay 120 24 56 28 4 2004/12/5 WS — 2.93 5.9 — — — ——— 5 2007/9/6 TY Fitow 2.55 4.7 1.04 50 km 110 23 167 33 (south west) 6 2019/10/12 TY Hagibis 2.45 5.1 1.38 50 km 130 37 333 41 (south west) 7 1990/4/8 SS — 2.31 5.7 — — — ——— Note: The wave heights and periods were retrieved from the wave-monitoring database of Tokyo Port, covering 1983 to 2019.