Highlight articles

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences

Modelling global tropical cyclone wind footprints

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-20-567-2020
10 March 2020

Assessing tropical cyclone (TC) wind risk is challenging due to a lack of historical TC wind data. This paper presents a novel approach to simulating landfalling TC winds anywhere on Earth. It captures local features such as high winds over coastal hills and lulls over rough terrain. A dataset of over 700 global historical wind footprints has been generated to provide new views of historical events. This dataset can be used to advance our understanding of overland TC wind risk.

Measuring compound flood potential from river discharge and storm surge extremes at the global scale

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-20-489-2020
3 March 2020

When a high river discharge coincides with a high storm surge level, this can exarcebate flood level, depth, and duration, resulting in a so-called compound flood event. These events are not currently included in global flood models. In this research, we analyse the timing and correlation between modelled discharge and storm surge level time series in deltas and estuaries. Our results provide a first indication of regions along the global coastline with a high compound flooding potential.

TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI):motivations and protocol version 1.0

Atmospheric characterization of rocky exoplanets orbiting within the habitable zone of nearby M dwarf stars is around the corner with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), expected to be launch in 2021.
Global climate models (GCMs) are powerful tools to model exoplanet atmospheres and to predict their habitability. However, intrinsic differences between the models can lead to various predictions. This paper presents an experiment protocol to evaluate these differences.

The 22 December 2018 Mount Anak Krakatau volcanogenic tsunami on SundaStrait coasts, Indonesia: tsunami and damage characteristics

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-20-549-2020
3 March 2020

On 22 December 2018, a tsunami was generated from the Mount Anak Krakatau area that was caused by volcanic flank failures. The tsunami had severe impacts on the western coasts of Banten and the southern coasts of Lampung in Indonesia. A series of surveys to measure the impacts of the tsunami was started 3 d after the tsunami and lasted for 10 d. This paper provides insights from the tsunami-affected area in terms of distribution of tsunami flow depths, boulders and building damage.

An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&C v1.0)

We developed a novel urban ecohydrological model (UT&C v1.0) that is able to account for the effects of different plant types on the urban climate and hydrology, as well as the effects of the urban environment on plant well-being and performance. UT&C performs well when compared against energy flux measurements in three cities in different climates (Singapore, Melbourne, Phoenix) and can be used to assess urban climate mitigation strategies that aim at increasing or changing urban green cover.

A comparative assessment of the uncertainties of global surface ocean CO2 estimates using a machine-learning ensemble (CSIR-ML6 version 2019a) – have we hit the wall?

The ocean plays a vital role in mitigating climate change by taking up atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). Historically sparse ship-based measurements of surface ocean CO₂make direct estimates of CO₂exchange changes unreliable. We introduce a machine-learning ensemble approach to fill these observational gaps. Our method performs incrementally better relative to past methods, leading to our hypothesis that we are perhaps reaching the limitation of machine-learning algorithms’ capability.

First reported case of thunderstorm asthma in Israel

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-19-2715-2019
10 December 2019

During severe thunderstorms, cold outflows can eject pollen and dust particles from the surface, releasing allergens and causingthunderstorm asthmaepidemics in sensitive populations. We report the first case in Israel that occurred on 25 October 2015. The emergency room presentation records from three hospitals in central Israel showed a clear increase in patients with respiratory complaints immediately after the passage of a massive super-cell thunderstorm in the area.

The first version of the Pan-European Indoor Radon Map

Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences
DOI 10.5194/nhess-19-2451-2019
15 November 2019

The first version of the Pan-European Indoor Radon Map is presented in this article. The map has been developed using summary statistics estimated from 1.2 million samples. It represents an average radon concentration per 10 km x 10 km grid cell under the assumption that there are dwellings in the grid cell. It is a major contribution to the understanding of the exposure to ionizing radiation of Europeans and a first step towards a European radon exposure and, in the future, radon dose map.

The biophysics, ecology, and biogeochemistry of functionally diverse, vertically and horizontally heterogeneous ecosystems: the Ecosystem Demography model, version 2.2 – Part 1: Model description

Our paper describes the Ecosystem Demography model. This computer program calculates how plants and ground exchange heat, water, and carbon with the air, and how plants grow, reproduce and die in different climates. Most models simplify forests to an average big tree. We consider that tall, deep-rooted trees get more light and water than small plants, and that some plants can with shade and drought. This diversity helps us to better explain how plants live and interact with the atmosphere.

The biophysics, ecology, and biogeochemistry of functionally diverse, vertically and horizontally heterogeneous ecosystems: the Ecosystem Demography model, version 2.2 – Part 2: Model evaluation for tropical South America

The Ecosystem Demography model calculates the fluxes of heat, water, and carbon between plants and ground and the air, and the life cycle of plants in different climates. To test if our calculations were reasonable, we compared our results with field and satellite measurements. Our model predicts well the extent of the Amazon forest, how much light forests absorb, and how much water forests release to the air. However, it must improve the tree growth rates and how fast dead plants decompose.

NH Natural Hazards Highlight articles

Highlight articles

Modelling global tropical cyclone wind footprints

Measuring compound flood potential from river discharge and storm surge extremes at the global scale

TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI):motivations and protocol version 1.0

The 22 December 2018 Mount Anak Krakatau volcanogenic tsunami on SundaStrait coasts, Indonesia: tsunami and damage characteristics

An urban ecohydrological model to quantify the effect of vegetation on urban climate and hydrology (UT&C v1.0)

A comparative assessment of the uncertainties of global surface ocean CO2 estimates using a machine-learning ensemble (CSIR-ML6 version 2019a) – have we hit the wall?

First reported case of thunderstorm asthma in Israel

The first version of the Pan-European Indoor Radon Map

The biophysics, ecology, and biogeochemistry of functionally diverse, vertically and horizontally heterogeneous ecosystems: the Ecosystem Demography model, version 2.2 – Part 1: Model description

The biophysics, ecology, and biogeochemistry of functionally diverse, vertically and horizontally heterogeneous ecosystems: the Ecosystem Demography model, version 2.2 – Part 2: Model evaluation for tropical South America

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