TheImpactAngleofHurricane重点.PDFVIP

1 2 The Impact Angle of Hurricane Sandy’s New Jersey Landfall 3 4 Timothy M. Hall 5 NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies 6 New York, NY 7 8 Adam H. Sobel 9 Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, 10 New York, NY. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Abstract 25 Hurricane Sandy’s track crossed the New Jersey coastline at an angle closer to 26 perpendicular than any previous hurricane in the historic record. This steep angle 27 was one of many contributing factors to a surge-plus-tide peak-water level that 28 surpassed 4m in parts of New Jersey and New York. The lack of precedent in the 29 historic record makes it difficult to estimate the rate of Sandy-like events using 30 solely historic landfalls. Here we use a stochastic model built on historical hurricane 31 data from the entire North Atlantic to generate a large sample of synthetic hurricane 32 tracks. From this synthetic set we calculate that under long-term average climate 33 conditions a hurricane of Sandy’s intensity or greater (category 1+) is expected to 34 make NJ landfall at least as close to perpendicular as Sandy at an average annual 35 rate of only 0.0014 yr-1 (95% confidence range 0.0007 to 0.0023); i.e., a return 36 period of 714 yr (95% confidence range 1429 to 435). Thus, either Sandy was an 37 exceedingly rare storm, or our assumption of long-term average climate conditions 38 is erroneous, and Sandy’s track was made more likely by climate change in a way 39 that is yet to be fully determined. 40 41 42 1. Introduction 43 The average trajectory for North Atlantic