Parlons Sciences

Notre postdoc Pelin UZUN nous a partagé ses résultats de travaux de thèse et de postdocs ..

From Climate-Forced Waves to Coastal Flooding: Modeling Extreme Sea Levels in a Semi-Enclosed Basin

This presentation summarized a representative part of Pelin's doctoral research investigating climate-driven changes in wave dynamics and their contribution to extreme sea levels and coastal flooding.

The study integrates basin-scale wave modeling, statistical analysis of total water level components, and empirical wave runup estimation within a physically consistent modeling chain. While the SWAN model was carefully calibrated and validated using regional climate model winds, the central methodological contribution lies in the development of a dynamic shoreline-based coastal framework linking wave conditions to runup and flooding.

Rather than assuming a static coastal boundary, shoreline positions and local beach slopes were updated according to time-varying water levels, allowing a more realistic representation of wave–shoreline interaction under future climate conditions. Future projections for the Black Sea indicate increasing extreme wave heights and substantial spatial variability in trends. In several coastal sectors, wave runup reaches magnitudes comparable to storm surge, significantly influencing extreme sea level estimates and flood extent patterns.

The presented framework provides an adaptable pathway from climate forcing to coastal hazard assessment and highlights the importance of explicitly resolving wave-induced processes in adaptation-oriented coastal studies.