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How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor

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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Brandon, Christine M., Woodruff, Jonathan D., Donnelly, Jeffrey P., Sullivan, Richard M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4258685/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25482298
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07366
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author Brandon, Christine M.
Woodruff, Jonathan D.
Donnelly, Jeffrey P.
Sullivan, Richard M.
author_facet Brandon, Christine M.
Woodruff, Jonathan D.
Donnelly, Jeffrey P.
Sullivan, Richard M.
author_sort Brandon, Christine M.
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-42586852014-12-15 How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor Brandon, Christine M. Woodruff, Jonathan D. Donnelly, Jeffrey P. Sullivan, Richard M. Sci Rep Article 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. Nature Publishing Group 2014-12-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4258685/ /pubmed/25482298 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07366 Text en Copyright © 2014, Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder in order to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Brandon, Christine M.
Woodruff, Jonathan D.
Donnelly, Jeffrey P.
Sullivan, Richard M.
How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor
title How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor
title_full How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor
title_fullStr How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor
title_full_unstemmed How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor
title_short How Unique was Hurricane Sandy? Sedimentary Reconstructions of Extreme Flooding from New York Harbor
title_sort how unique was hurricane sandy? sedimentary reconstructions of extreme flooding from new york harbor
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4258685/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25482298
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07366
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