On the improvement of wave and storm surge hindcasts by downscaled atmospheric forcing: application to historical storms

Bresson, Émilie; Arbogast, Philippe; Aouf, Lotfi; Paradis, Denis; Kortcheva, Anna; Bogatchev, Andrey; Galabov, Vasko; Dimitrova, Marieta; Morvan, Guillaume; Ohl, Patrick; Tsenova, Boryana; Rabier, Florence

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-997-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-997-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-997-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 4

Research article

|

04 Apr 2018

Research article |

| 04 Apr 2018

On the improvement of wave and storm surge hindcasts by downscaled atmospheric forcing: application to historical storms

Émilie Bresson, Philippe Arbogast, Lotfi Aouf, Denis Paradis, Anna Kortcheva, Andrey Bogatchev, Vasko Galabov, Marieta Dimitrova, Guillaume Morvan, Patrick Ohl, Boryana Tsenova, and Florence Rabier

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Final revised paper (published on 04 Apr 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 15 May 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review comment on nhess-2017-131', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Jun 2017
- AC1: 'Answer to anonymous Referee #1', Émilie Bresson, 10 Jul 2017
RC2: 'Review of "On the improvement of waves and storm surge hindcasts by downscaled atmospheric forcing: Application to historical storms"', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Jun 2017
- AC2: 'Answer to anonymous Referee #2', Émilie Bresson, 10 Jul 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (24 Jul 2017) by Ricardo Trigo

AR by Émilie Bresson on behalf of the Authors (29 Sep 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Oct 2017) by Ricardo Trigo

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (31 Oct 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Second iteration review of the manuscript nhess-2017-131 “On the improvement of waves and storm surge hindcasts by downscaled atmospheric forcing: Application to historical storms”, by Bresso et al.

Unfortunately the concerns regarding the methodology, and the quality of the text are stil present. The text still feels more like a technical report, and still needs improvement. I raise some questions below, but there are much more to be addresses. The text is also full of gramatical errors that should have not been passed to a second review iteration. Please revise once more.
P1-L5: Add the ECMWF reanalysis acronyms you are using between curly brackets after “reanalyses”.
P2-L8-9: Are you doing this? “A global atmospheric reanalysis is built using a data assimilation system and historical observations spanning an extended period.”

P2-18: ERA is not “European Reanalysis” but “ECMWF Re-Analysis”.

P2-20: The ECMWF reanalyses were not produce using a “coupled climate system, including atmosphere, land surface and ocean”. They have been produced by older versions of IFS, the ECMWF operational forecasting coupled model system. By “older” is meant a previous version, compared to the present (at the time) operational version.

P2-24: ERA-Interim is not “the reanalysis with the highest resolution”. There are several other reanalyses with higher resolution, like CFSR, MERA2, JRA-55, etc. ERA-Interim is the highest resolution reanalysis at ECMWF, so your statement is misleading.

P3-L2-5: This sentence (first paragraph on page 3) is full of inaccuracies and misleading statements: “Mean sea level pressure and surface wind are needed as atmospheric forcing to forecast wave and storm surges. In the present study, these two variables are obtained through reanalyses built using a given data assimilation system constrained by past observations. A dynamical downscaling is applied on global atmospheric reanalyses since their resolution is too coarse to deliver accurate information for hindcast.”
1. Not “obtained through” but “obtained from”.
2. The “downscaling” is not “applied” but a “dynamical downscaling of the global reanalyses is produced, since the global reanalyses are too coarse to force the regional wave and storm surge models”.

P6-L21-22: Stating the goal of the study in the results section is not correct. Move it to the introduction.

P8-L19: Which ERA?

P1-L1: Replace “analysis” with “reanalysis”.

P16-16: Why coarse resolution generates “strong uncertainties”?; What is a “strong uncertainty”?

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (04 Nov 2017) by Ricardo Trigo

AR by Émilie Bresson on behalf of the Authors (14 Dec 2017)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 Dec 2017) by Ricardo Trigo

ED: Publish as is (16 Feb 2018) by Ricardo Trigo

AR by Émilie Bresson on behalf of the Authors (21 Feb 2018) Manuscript

Short summary

Winds, waves and storm surges can inflict severe damage in coastal areas. To improve adaptability for such events, a better understanding of storm-induced coastal flooding events is necessary. This article is dedicated to evaluating wave and surge reconstruction methods based on available reanalyses data for French and Bulgarian coasts. This study shows that the wave and surge models should be forced by downscaled winds rather than modelled reanalyses.