Taller ocean waves could slam coastal regions in the tropics and in parts of the Southern Hemisphere this century, thanks to faster surface winds.
Xiaolan Wang and her colleagues at Environment Canada in Toronto developed statistical models that use sea-level pressure data from multiple global climate model simulations to predict changes in the height of ocean waves. The authors found that the frequency of extremely high waves that now occur roughly once a decade could double or triple by the end of this century in some coastal regions, including Chile (pictured) and Mexico's Baja peninsula. Surface wind speeds are affected by changing air temperature and sea-level pressure.
Rising sea levels could worsen the impacts of bigger waves, such as coastal flooding and erosion, the authors say.
Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.org/q2c (2014)
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Climate change spawns bigger waves. Nature 505, 456 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/505456a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/505456a
