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Development of a Forecast Process for Meteotsunami Events in the Gulf of Mexico Leilani D

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Development of a Forecast Process for Meteotsunami Events in the Gulf of Mexico Leilani D University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 11-4-2016 Development of a Forecast Process for Meteotsunami Events in the Gulf of Mexico Leilani D. Paxton University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Environmental Sciences Commons, and the Meteorology Commons Scholar Commons Citation Paxton, Leilani D., "Development of a Forecast Process for Meteotsunami Events in the Gulf of Mexico" (2016). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6564 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Development of a Forecast Process for Meteotsunami Events in the Gulf of Mexico by Leilani D. Paxton A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Environmental Science and Policy School of Geosciences College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Jennifer Collins, Ph.D. Kamal Alsharif, Ph.D. Mark Luther, Ph.D. Date of Approval: November 4, 2016 Keywords: Seiche, Frontal Systems, Barometric Pressure Anomaly Copyright © 2016, Leilani D. Paxton DEDICATION I dedicate this to my loving family and my dog Bořivoj. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my committee: Dr. Jennifer Collins, Dr. Kamal Alsharif, and Dr. Mark Luther. I would also like to thank others that provided support and suggestions including Dr. Steve Meyers, Dr. Thomas Wahl, Dr. Ivica Vilibić and Heather Key. Finally many thanks to my supportive parents for their insight and guidance through this process. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Meteotsunami Description and Identification .......................................................... 1 1.2 Distribution and Abundance .................................................................................... 2 1.3 Formation and Propagation ..................................................................................... 5 1.4 The West Florida Continental Shelf ........................................................................ 8 CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH DESIGN ........................................................................................... 10 2.1 Problem Statement ................................................................................................. 10 2.2 Research Objectives ............................................................................................... 10 2.3 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 11 2.4 Study Area ............................................................................................................. 12 2.5 Methodology .......................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................................ 21 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 21 3.2 Statistical Analysis ................................................................................................. 22 3.2.1 Temporal Analysis ........................................................................................... 24 3.2.2 Physical Analysis ............................................................................................. 26 3.2.3 Geographical Analysis ..................................................................................... 28 3.2.4 Regression Analysis ......................................................................................... 29 3.3 Case Studies ........................................................................................................... 29 3.3.1 Naples, 12 March 2010 .................................................................................... 30 3.3.2 Naples 9 June 2012 .......................................................................................... 33 3.3.3 Naples 27 March 2015 ..................................................................................... 36 3.3.4 Naples 11 January 2012 ................................................................................... 39 3.3.5 Naples 15 April 2009 ....................................................................................... 42 3.3.6 Clearwater 15 April 2013................................................................................. 45 3.3.7 Clearwater 17 November 2014 ........................................................................ 48 3.3.8 Clearwater 27 February 2010........................................................................... 51 3.3.9 Clearwater 15 February 2013........................................................................... 54 3.3.10 Clearwater 12 February 2010......................................................................... 57 3.3.11 Cedar Key 15 July 2010 ................................................................................. 60 CHAPTER 4: DEVELOPING A FORECAST PROCESS .......................................................... 63 i 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 63 4.2 Long Term Detection ............................................................................................. 63 4.3 Short Term Detection ............................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER 5: SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................................................................... 68 5.1 Summary ................................................................................................................ 68 5.3 Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 70 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 72 APPENDIX A: DATA LISTING ................................................................................................. 75 ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Optimal speeds for meteotsunami formation. ............................................................... 9 Table 2. A comparison of the 1990 and 2014 populations in the study area (US Census Bureau 2014, US Census Bureau 1990). .................................................................... 11 Table 3. Tide gauge location, ID, latitude, longitude, mean range and diurnal range. ............. 15 Table 4. Missing water level data. ............................................................................................ 16 Table 5. Selected cases (See Appendix for all cases). .............................................................. 23 Table 6. Meteotsunami height change (m) decision matrix for pressure and wind forcing in development areas. ..................................................................................... 66 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. A representation of the generation of the catastrophic meteotsunami in Nagasaki Bay, 31 March 1979 (Monserrat, Vilibic, and Rabinovic 2006) from: Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 6, 1035-1051, 2006 http://www.nat- hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/6/1035/2006/ doi:10.5194/nhess-6-1035-2006 © Author(s) 2006. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. ................................................. 3 Figure 2. West Florida Continental Shelf Bathymetry with nearshore depths indicted in 20 m increments (black) and optimal speed of the pressure disturbance for that depth (white) to produce a meteotsunami. .................................................................... 8 Figure 3. Florida Gulf of Mexico coastal counties in the area of study. .................................... 13 Figure 4. NOAA Tide Gauge Locations in the Florida Gulf of Mexico coastal area of study. ........................................................................................................................... 14 Figure 5. Examples of raw tide data, de-tided data, and filtered data from Clearwater Beach which include cases A and B. .......................................................................... 18 Figure 6. Predicted astronomical tides and measured water levels at Clearwater Beach. The blue line shows the predicted astronomical tide as calculated by NOAA, the green line shows the observed water levels, and the red line shown in the legend refers to any preliminary data not yet verified (no preliminary data exists in this graph). .................................................................................................... 19 Figure 7. Example of a possible meteotsunami
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