Brandon Christine M, Woodruff Jonathan D, Donnelly Jeffrey P, Sullivan Richard M
Department of Geosciences, 611 N. Pleasant St., 233 Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA.
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Mail Stop #22, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, 02543, USA.
Sci Rep. 2014 Dec 8;4:7366. doi: 10.1038/srep07366.
The magnitude of flooding in New York City by Hurricane Sandy is commonly believed to be extremely rare, with estimated return periods near or greater than 1000 years. However, the brevity of tide gauge records result in significant uncertainties when estimating the uniqueness of such an event. Here we compare resultant deposition by Hurricane Sandy to earlier storm-induced flood layers in order to extend records of flooding to the city beyond the instrumental dataset. Inversely modeled storm conditions from grain size trends show that a more compact yet more intense hurricane in 1821 CE probably resulted in a similar storm tide and a significantly larger storm surge. Our results indicate the occurrence of additional flood events like Hurricane Sandy in recent centuries, and highlight the inadequacies of the instrumental record in estimating current flood risk by such extreme events.
人们普遍认为，飓风桑迪给纽约市带来的洪水规模极为罕见，估计重现期接近或超过1000年。然而，潮汐测量记录时间较短，在估算此类事件的独特性时会导致很大的不确定性。在此，我们将飓风桑迪造成的沉积物与早期风暴引发的洪水层进行比较，以便将该城市的洪水记录扩展到仪器数据集之外。根据粒度趋势反向模拟的风暴条件表明，公元1821年一场更紧凑但强度更大的飓风可能导致了类似的风暴潮和明显更大的风暴涌浪。我们的结果表明，近几个世纪还发生过类似飓风桑迪的其他洪水事件，并凸显了仪器记录在估算此类极端事件当前洪水风险方面的不足。
