Wave models for Eleuthera, Northern Bahamas

As global climate warms and sea level rises, coastal areas will be subject to more frequent extreme flooding and hurricanes. Geologic evidence for extreme coastal storms during past warm periods has the potential to provide fundamental insights into their future intensity. Recent studies argue that during the Last Interglacial (MIS 5e, ~128-116 ka) tropical and extratropical North Atlantic cyclones may have been more intense than at present, and may have produced waves larger than those observed historically. Such strong swells are inferred to have created a number of geologic features that can be observed today along the coastlines of Bermuda and the Bahamas. In this paper, we investigate the most iconic among these features: massive boulders atop a cliff in North Eleuthera, Bahamas. We combine geologic field surveys, wave models, and boulder transport equations to test the hypothesis that such boulders must have been emplaced by storms of greater-than-historical intensity. […]

随着全球气候变暖和海平面上升，沿海地区将面临更频繁的极端洪水和飓风的侵袭。过去温暖时期极端海岸风暴的地质证据，有望为未来风暴的强度提供根本性的洞见。近期研究表明，在上一间冰期（MIS 5e，约128-116千年前）热带和非热带北大西洋气旋可能比现今更为强烈，并可能产生了比历史观察到的更大的波浪。此类强烈的海涌被认为形成了今天沿着百慕大和巴哈马海岸线可以观察到的众多地质特征。在本研究中，我们调查了这些特征中最具代表性的：巴哈马北艾勒图拉悬崖顶部的大量巨石。我们结合地质现场调查、波浪模型和巨石运输方程，以验证此类巨石必须是由超过历史强度的风暴所放置这一假设。