Projections of wave heights for Whatcom County, Northwest Washington State coast (2015-2100)

Metadata also available as - [Outline] - [Parseable text] - [XML]

Frequently anticipated questions:

What does this data set describe?

Title:
Projections of wave heights for Whatcom County, Northwest Washington State coast (2015-2100)
Abstract:
Projected wave heights associated with compound coastal flood hazards for existing and future sea-level rise (SLR) and storm scenarios are shown for Whatcom County, Washington, in a series of raster geotiff files. Projections were made using a system of numerical models driven by output from Global Climate Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). The resulting data are water levels of projected flood hazards along the Whatcom County coast due to sea level rise and plausible future storm conditions that consider the changing climate and natural variability. In addition to sea-level rise, flood simulations run by these numerical models included dynamic contributions from tide, storm surge, wind, waves, river discharge, and seasonal sea-level fluctuations. Outputs include waves from combinations of SLR scenarios (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 and 5.0 m) storm conditions including 1-year, 5-year, 10-year, 20-year, 50-year and 100-year return interval storms and a background condition (no storm - astronomic tide and average atmospheric conditions). The annual average King Tide is also provided and includes mean storm surge occurring during King Tides.
Supplemental_Information:
This work is part of ongoing modeling efforts for the United States. For more information about the USGS Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS), see https://www.usgs.gov/centers/pcmsc/science/coastal-storm-modeling-system-cosmos. Work was funded by the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, Port of Bellingham, City of Blaine, United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Geological Survey. Although this Federal Geographic Data Committee-compliant metadata file is intended to document the data set in nonproprietary form, as well as in Esri format, this metadata file may include some Esri-specific terminology. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Although this Federal Geographic Data Committee-compliant metadata file is intended to document the data set in nonproprietary form, as well as in Esri format, this metadata file may include some Esri-specific terminology.
  1. How might this data set be cited?
    Grossman, Eric E., vanArendonk, Nathan R., Crosby, Sean C., Tehranirad, Babak, Nederhoff, Kees, Parker, Kai A., Barnard, Patrick L., Erikson, Li, and Danielson, Jeffrey J., 20240213, Projections of wave heights for Whatcom County, Northwest Washington State coast (2015-2100): data release DOI:10.5066/P9I08NS5, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, California.

    Online Links:

    This is part of the following larger work.

    Grossman, Eric E., vanArendonk, Nathan R., Crosby, Sean C., Tehranirad, Babak, Nederhoff, Kees, Parker, Kai A., Barnard, Patrick L., Erikson, Li, and Danielson, Jeffrey J., 2024, Coastal hazards assessment associated with sea level rise and storms along the Whatcom County, Northwest Washington State coast: data release DOI:10.5066/P9I08NS5, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Suggested Citation: Grossman, E.E., vanArendonk, N.R., Crosby, S.C., Tehranirad, B., Nederhoff, K., Barnard, P.L., Erikson, L., and Danielson, J.J., 2024, Coastal hazards assessment associated with sea level rise and storms along the Whatcom County, Northwest Washington State coast. U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9I08NS5.
  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?
    West_Bounding_Coordinate: -123.11107
    East_Bounding_Coordinate: -122.47924
    North_Bounding_Coordinate: 49.04608
    South_Bounding_Coordinate: 48.64034
  3. What does it look like?
    waveheight_RP50_SLR0.png (PNG)
    Example map showing the wave height results for the 50-year return period and 0-m sea-level rise scenario.
  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?
    Beginning_Date: 2019
    Ending_Date: 2023
    Currentness_Reference:
    start of project work through publication year
  5. What is the general form of this data set?
    Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: geoTIFF
  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?
    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?
      This is a Raster data set. It contains the following raster data types:
      • Dimensions 323 x 216, type Pixel
    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
      Grid_Coordinate_System_Name: Universal Transverse Mercator
      Universal_Transverse_Mercator:
      UTM_Zone_Number: 10
      Transverse_Mercator:
      Scale_Factor_at_Central_Meridian: 0.9996
      Longitude_of_Central_Meridian: -123.00000
      Latitude_of_Projection_Origin: 0.00000
      False_Easting: 500000.0
      False_Northing: 0.00
      Planar coordinates are encoded using row and column
      Abscissae (x-coordinates) are specified to the nearest 250
      Ordinates (y-coordinates) are specified to the nearest 250
      Planar coordinates are specified in Meters
      The horizontal datum used is North American Datum of 1983.
      The ellipsoid used is GRS 1980.
      The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.0.
      The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257222101.
      Vertical_Coordinate_System_Definition:
      Altitude_System_Definition:
      Altitude_Datum_Name: North American Vertical Datum of 1988
      Altitude_Resolution: 0.01
      Altitude_Distance_Units: meters
      Altitude_Encoding_Method:
      Explicit elevation coordinate included with horizontal coordinates
  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?
    wave height
    geoTIFF files contain projections of flood-hazard wave heights (Source: Producer defined)
    height
    wave height associated with corresponding scenario of sea-level rise (SLR) and storm return period (RP) indicated (Source: model-derived)
    Range of values
    Minimum:0.0
    Maximum:6.2
    Units:meters
    Resolution:0.1
    Entity_and_Attribute_Overview:
    The data contain wave heights. Return periods cover once-a-year storms (RP0001), every 5 (RP0005), every 10 (RP0010), every 20 (RP0020), every 50 (RP0050) and every 100 years (RP0100) storms. File names reflect the attribute (waveheight), the area of the projection (county), the return period (RP) of storm conditions and sea-level rise (SLR) scenario. SLR scenarios are listed in centimeters and range from no SLR (SLR000) to a SLR of 500 cm (SLR500). For example, waveheights_D1_RP0100_SLR200 contains the wave heights for Whatcom County (D1) during a one hundred-year storm and sea level rise of 200 cm (2 m). Data are shown across the open and coastal waterways of the county and are spatially consistent for coastal flood hazards of the same scenario (see the flood hazard layers contained in Projections of coastal flood hazards and flood potential for Whatcom County, also available in this data release).
    Entity_and_Attribute_Detail_Citation: none

Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set? (may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)
    • Eric E. Grossman
    • Nathan R. vanArendonk
    • Sean C. Crosby
    • Babak Tehranirad
    • Kees Nederhoff
    • Kai A. Parker
    • Patrick L. Barnard
    • Li Erikson
    • Jeffrey J. Danielson
  2. Who also contributed to the data set?
    This dataset was funded by the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, Port of Bellingham, the City of Blaine, United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Geological Survey.
  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?
    U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
    Attn: PCMSC Science Data Coordinator
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA

    831-427-4747 (voice)
    pcmsc_data@usgs.gov

Why was the data set created?

These data are intended to support the information needs of policy makers, resource managers, science researchers, students, and the general public. These projections for future sea-level rise scenarios provide emergency responders and coastal planners with critical hazards information that can be used as a screening tool to increase public safety, mitigate physical damages, and more effectively manage and allocate resources within complex coastal settings. These data can be used with geographic information systems or other software to identify and assess possible areas of exposure to flooding and vulnerability. These data are not intended to be used for navigation.

How was the data set created?

  1. From what previous works were the data drawn?
  2. How were the data generated, processed, and modified?
    Date: 15-Oct-2021 (process 1 of 4)
    Generated a 250-meter Simulating WAves Nearshore SWAN grid for the area of interest as described by Crosby and others (2023).
    Date: 15-Oct-2021 (process 2 of 4)
    Wind speeds in the form of hourly wind predictions downscaled to 12 km by the University of Washington from CMIP5 GFDL historical and future climate were further interpolated to a 2.5 km-resolution grid based on Hthe Canadian High-Resolution Deterministic Product System (HRDPS) model (2016-2020, https://eccc-msc.github.io/open-data/msc-data/nwp_hrdps/readme_hrdps_en/) data using an Inverse distance weighting (IDW) method for the nearest 9 points. A correction factor based on the percent difference in wind speed between the GFDL and HRDPS that in general, shows higher wind speeds over water and lower wind speeds over land, was also applied as described by Crosby and others (2023).
    Date: 15-Jun-2022 (process 3 of 4)
    Wave heights were generated using a look-up table approach that interpolates pre-computed wave statistics for all plausible combinations of wind speed, direction and water levels derived from the regional 250-meter SWAN model for the time-series wind speed and directions of the 2.5 km resolution hindcast and future projected winds following Crosby and others (2023) and water levels of Grossman and others (2023). Linear wave transformation for swell was not used since swell conditions have a negligible contribution to extreme wave heights in Whatcom County.
    Date: 15-Jun-2022 (process 4 of 4)
    Extreme wave heights were estimated using an empirical approach after Weibull (1937) plotting position for return periods below ten years. For higher return periods, the fitted peak-over-threshold (POT) Generalized Pareto Distribution was utilized to estimate return values for the higher return periods, an established approach to increase the confidence of such estimates since the record length was limited to 85 years. Extreme wave heights for the 1-, 5-, 10-, 20-, 50- and 100-yr return periods and sea level rise scenarios of 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 and 5.0 m are included in geotiff format.
  3. What similar or related data should the user be aware of?
    Mass, Clifford F., Salathe, Eric P., Steed, Richard, and Baars, Jeffrey, 2022, The Mesoscale Response to Global Warming over the Pacific Northwest Evaluated Using a Regional Climate Model Ensemble.

    Online Links:

    • doi:10.1175/JCLI-D-21-0061.1.

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Mass, Clifford F., Salath, Eric P, Steed, Richard, and Baars, Jeffrey. 2022. The Mesoscale Response to Global Warming over the Pacific Northwest Evaluated Using a Regional Climate Model Ensemble. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10327405. Journal of Climate, 35.6 Web.
    Gao, Yang, Leung, Ruby L., Zhao, Chun, and Hagos, Samson, 2017, Sensitivity of U.S. summer precipitation to model resolution and convective parameterizations across gray zone resolutions.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Gao, Y., Leung, R.L., Zhao, C., and Hagos, S., 2017, Sensitivity of U.S. summer precipitation to model resolution and convective parameterizations across gray zone resolutions: Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, v. 122, p. 2714-2733.
    Grossman, Eric E, Tehranirad, Babak, Nederhoff, Kees, Crosby, Sean, Stevens, Andrew W, VanArendonk, Nathan R, Nowacki, Daniel, Erikson, Li, and Barnard, Patrick, 2023, Modeling extreme water levels in the Salish Sea: A new method for estimating sea level anomalies for application in hydrodynamic simulations.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Grossman, E.E., Tehranirad, B., Nederhoff, C.M., Crosby, S.C., Stevens, A.W., Van Arendonk, N.R., Nowacki, D.J., Erikson, L.H., Barnard, P.L. Modeling Extreme Water Levels in the Salish Sea: The Importance of Including Remote Sea Level Anomalies for Application in Hydrodynamic Simulations. Water 2023, 15, 4167. https://doi.org/10.3390/w15234167.
    Crosby, Sean C., Nederhoff, Kees, VanArendonk, Nathan R., and Grossman, Eric E., 2023, Efficient modeling of long-period wave propagation and short-period wind-wave generation: a comparison of several methods in a semi-enclosed estuary..

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Crosby, S. C., Nederhoff, K, vanArendonk, N. R., Grossman, E. E. 2023. Efficient modeling of long-period wave propagation and short-period wind-wave generation: a comparison of several methods in a semi-enclosed estuary, Journal of Ocean Modelling, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocemod.2023.102231.
    Crosby, Sean C., and Grossman, Eric E., 2019, Wave observations from nearshore bottom-mounted pressure sensors in Skagit and Bellingham Bays, Washington, USA from Dec 2017 to Feb 2018..

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Crosby, S.C., and Grossman, E.E., 2019, Wave observations from nearshore bottom-mounted pressure sensors in Skagit and Bellingham Bays, Washington, USA from Dec 2017 to Feb 2018: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9JZ5F00.
    Weibull, Waloddi, 1937, Weibull, W. (1939).

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Weibull, W. (1939) A Statistical Theory of the Strength of Materials, VOL. 151, Generalstabens Litografiska Anstalts Frlag, Stockholm, 45 p.

How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?
    Attribute values are model-derived significant wave heights associated with observed storm conditions validated against observations (Crosby and Grossman, 2019) and projected changes in storms and plausible sea-level rise scenarios which are therefore not validated.
  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?
    Data are concurrent with topobathymetric DEM locations.
  3. How accurate are the heights or depths?
    Model-derived data are accurate within published uncertainty bounds, indicative of total uncertainty from wind and water level data sources and model processes. This value is spatially variable and dependent on scenario. See Process Steps for details on total contributions to uncertainty.
  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?
    Dataset is considered complete for the information presented (as described in the abstract) and will be updated as necessary as improvements are developed. Users are advised to read the metadata record and cited references carefully for additional details.
  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?
    Data have undergone quality checks and meet standards.

How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?
Access_Constraints None
Use_Constraints USGS-authored or produced data and information are in the public domain from the U.S. Government and are freely redistributable with proper metadata and source attribution. Please recognize and acknowledge the U.S. Geological Survey as the originator(s) of the dataset and in products derived from these data. This information is not intended for navigation purposes.
  1. Who distributes the data set? (Distributor 1 of 1)
    U.S. Geological Survey - CMGDS
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA

    831-427-4747 (voice)
    pcmsc_data@usgs.gov
  2. What's the catalog number I need to order this data set? The data contain wave heights. Return periods cover once-a-year storms (RP0001), every 5 (RP0005), every 10 (RP0010), every 20 (RP0020), every 50 (RP0050) and every 100 years (RP0100) storms. File names reflect the attribute (waveheight), the area of the projection (county; D1=Whatcom), the return period (RP) of storm conditions and sea-level rise (SLR) scenario. SLR scenarios are listed in centimeters and range from no SLR (SLR000) to a SLR of 500 cm (SLR500). For example, waveheights_D1_RP0100_SLR200 contains the wave heights for Whatcom County (D1) during a one hundred-year storm and sea level rise of 200 cm (2 m). Data are shown across the open and coastal waterways of the county and are spatially consistent for coastal flood hazards of the same scenario (see the flood hazard layers contained in Projections of coastal flood hazards and flood potential for Whatcom County, also available in this data release).
  3. What legal disclaimers am I supposed to read?
    Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data on any other system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty.
  4. How can I download or order the data?
  5. What hardware or software do I need in order to use the data set?
    These data can be viewed with GIS software.

Who wrote the metadata?

Dates:
Last modified: 13-Feb-2024
Metadata author:
U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
Attn: PCMSC Science Data Coordinator
2885 Mission Street
Santa Cruz, CA

831-427-4747 (voice)
pcmsc_data@usgs.gov
Metadata standard:
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998)
This page is <https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/catalog/pcmsc/DataReleases/CMGDS_DR_tool/DR_P9I08NS5/D1_waveGEV_CoSMoS_WA_metadata.faq.html>
Generated by mp version 2.9.51 on Wed Aug 14 16:12:48 2024