Impacts of climate change on coastal hydrodynamics around a headland and potential headland sediment bypassing
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Citation
D. Xie, Z. Hughes, D. FitzGerald, S. Tas, T.Z. Asik, S. Fagherazzi. 2024. "Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Hydrodynamics Around a Headland and Potential Headland Sediment Bypassing" Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 51, Issue 4. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023gl105323
Abstract
Shorelines face growing threats due to climate change and diminishing sand supply. Coastal headlands, common rocky features along coastlines, are crucial in shaping hydrodynamics and sediment transport. Yet, the influence of future climate conditions, including sea‐level rise (SLR) and intensified storm energy on complex shorelines with headlands has remained relatively unexplored. In this study, we model changes in hydrodynamics and headland bypassing under different SLR and higher storm wave scenarios. Our findings reveal the formation of circulation cells on both sides of a headland, where wave energy converges around the headland zone. Future climate conditions result in larger storm waves on the beach. However, SLR enhances nearshore currents through a landward shifting of the circulation cells, while higher storm waves intensify offshore flow currents due to the seaward movement of the cells. This effect, in turn, increases the potential for headland sediment bypassing.
Description
License
© 2024. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.