Storm Surge Inundation in South Asia under Climate Change Scenarios - Monitoring and Prediction of Tropical Cyclones in the Indian Ocean and Climate Change - page 348

Storm Surge Inundation in
South Asia under Climate
Change Scenarios
S.K. Dube*, A.D. Rao, Jismy Poulose,
M. Mohapatra 1 and T.S. Murty 2
Centre for Atmospheric Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi - 110016, India
1 India Meteorological Department, Lodi Road, New Delhi - 110003
2 University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
*e-mail: [e-mail]
1. Introduction
There has been extensive loss of life and damage associated with severe tropical
cyclones in the South Asian region. The Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea
are the two marginal seas of the North Indian Ocean and have given rise to
storm surges during the pre-monsoon (April-May) and the post- monsoon period
(October-December). Table 1 lists the events where the loss of lives were 1000
or more. All the entries in this table are for the Bay of Bengal only because loss
of lives from cyclones in the Arabian Sea never exceeded 1000 in a single
event. Observations clearly demonstrate that almost all the loss of life and the
major part of the damage are attributed to the coastal inundation due to the
storm surge.
2. Effect of Climate Change
In this paper we examine the impact of climate change (IPCC, 2007) on the
coastal inundation from storm surges in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian
Sea. In the paper of Knutson et al. (2010) it is stated that, due to climate change,
the intensity (as represented by the pressure drop at the centre of the cyclone)
of tropical cyclones might increase in the range of 2-11%. Even though this
projection is for the globe as a whole and not specifically for the North Indian
Ocean, for lack of any better information we have adopted this projection in
the study of the storm surges in the North Indian Ocean.