Assessing the potential of compound extreme storm surge and precipitation along China's coastline

Abstract

The occurrence of extreme storm surges and precipitation simultaneously or successively can lead to compound flooding. The interaction between extreme storm surges and precipitation holds significant implications for understanding the potential contributing to compound flood risk in coastal areas. This study examines the likelihood of joint occurrence for compound extreme storm surges and precipitation along the China's coastline using observations and model data sets based on tail dependence. We assess the complete characteristics of the tail dependence from observations at the spatio-temporal scale. Subsequently, we perform a principal component analysis to classify the compound flood into 6 synoptic patterns based on the mean sea level pressure data in two typical points (Xiamen and Shijiusuo). We analyze the structure dependence of both observed and simulated surge data and compare the dependence between the historical and the future tail dependence. The result shows that the Yellow Sea and East China Sea exhibit higher dependence compared to the Bohai Sea and South China Sea. The southeastern sea of China has more significant seasonal variation in dependence relative to the northern sea of China. The result indicates that the dominant weather type in Xiamen is associated with low sea pressure and high land pressure, while the type in Shijiusuo is located at the southern edge of a low-pressure center. Projected probabilities of future compound events (2015–2050) have shown substantial increases of 23.9%, 25.38%, 58.21%, and 119.47% over the current period (1979–2014), according to climate models CMCC-CM2-VHR4, GFDL-CMC192-SST, ECEarth3P-HR, and HadGEM3-GC31-HM, respectively. These findings emphasize the correlation between extreme precipitation and storm surges, contributing to a deeper understanding of the compound flood and promoting disaster prevention and control.