Tide Gauge And Satellite Altimetry Integration For Storm Surge Prediction

Integrating coarse temporal sampling by the satellite altimeter in the deep ocean with the high temporal sampling at tide gauges in sparse location along the coast has been used to improve the forecast of high water in the North Sea along the Danish Coast and storm surges along the Northeast coast of Australia. Along with satellite altimetric data, we have tried to investigate high frequency signals (surges) using data from the past 20 years to investigate existence of ability to capture surges in the regions. We have selected several representative high water events on the two continents based on tide gauge recordings and investigated the capability of the satellite altimeters to capture these in the sea surface height. On the European coast we find that when two or more satellites are available we capture more than 90% of the extreme sea level events. In the Great Barrier Reef section of the Northeast Australia, we have investigated several large cyclones causing much destruction when they hit the coast. One of these being the Cyclone Larry, which hit the Queensland coast in March 2006 and caused both losses of lives as well as huge devastation. Here we demonstrate the importance of integrating tide gauges with satellite altimetry for forecasting high water at the city of Townville in North East Australia.