PRIDE workshop:

Alaskan Coastal Climatologies Wind and Wave Hindcast Workshop

Anchorage, AK
August 2-3(4), 2005

OBJECTIVES | AGENDA [pdf]

RATIONALE

Alaska and Hawaii have long coastlines and an attendant dependence on activities on and around these coastal margins. In these areas ocean waves are of major interest because they physically impact the coast, the nearshore bottom zone, and structures in and around coastal waters. Waves are (usually) driven by wind, as are surges in sea-level; thus strong wind events, specifically storms, are also of interest. At finer scales of resolution modification of waves by bathymetry, coastline orientation, and the presence of ice in the marine and terrestrial environment occur.

In addition to close marine/marine weather associations inherent in the Alaskan and Hawaiian outlooks, there has been a surge of activity within the last few years that articulates risk and potential opportunities to coastal and near-coastal regions due to climate change, especially those situated in the arctic. Major reports and meetings represent a spectrum interests and have been assembled by a wide range of international consortiums and US state and federal agencies. The following table provides a cross-section of activity:

IASC - International Arctic Science Committee
GAO- US General Accounting Office
US-ARC - US Arctic Research Commission
AOOS - Alaska Ocean Observing System
RISA - Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (NOAA)
MMS - Minerals Management Service
IPA - International Permafrost Association
IARC - International Arctic Research Center (UAF)
NSF - National Science Foundation
OPP - Office of Polar Programs

NOAA is interested in moving ahead with a project, identified under the Integrated Environmental Applications and Information Program for the Pacific, that will support an IPY prototype project that will arrive at a new level of operational wind/wave climatology and forecasting capacity for the Alaska and Hawaii regions. This workshop is part of a scoping project that is tasked with providing relevant preliminary deliverables to the larger project.

Interest in this broad issue varies along a number of dimensions, including physical processes considered, time scale, spatial scale, geographic location, and end result. This has resulted in the existence of various, often poorly coordinated studies and data sets that have focused on many aspects of these systems. In order to proceed with the broad project objectives in the most efficient manner possible, this workshop has defined the objectives listed above and seeks to discharge these tasks by assembling a group of directors and experts representing various aspects of this topic.

Regarding objective 1), agency needs must be identified, and specifically in terms of implementation, because they provide the framework within which proposed climatology and operational/forecast projects must operate. This objective also covers coordination between similar efforts in the Alaska and Hawaii regions by identifying areas of overlap in capacity and need.   An assessment of present capacity 2) must be undertaken because existing activity and research results must be accounted for and brought to bear, to avoid duplication of effort. This is an involved component, covering three main target areas and their associated permutations:

a) data availability, observational and modeled, for various locations and spatial/temporal scales.
b) modeling capability - refers to existing models available to perform dedicated runs targeting specific needs, e.g. modeling a particular storm
c) integration - this refers to applications of data beyond its disciplinal boundaries, e.g. wave energy data feeding coastal erosion models

The final objective 3) addresses the next logical step, which is to match identified capacity and gaps with needs and begin thinking about implementation of existing capacity, or for gaps, commissioning the necessary work required to fill the gaps.