Diagnostic vs dynamic representation of the inverse barometer effect in a global ocean model and its potential for probabilistic storm surge forecasting

TL;DR

This study evaluates the impact of including the inverse barometer effect in a global ocean model to improve medium-range storm surge forecasts, showing modest error reductions and enhanced early warning capabilities.

Contribution

It compares diagnostic and dynamic methods for representing the inverse barometer effect in a global ocean model, highlighting regional differences and forecasting improvements.

Findings

Including the inverse barometer effect reduces RMS water level error by ~1 cm on average.

Error reduction is 4-5 cm when masking low residual water levels.

Dynamic pressure forcing performs slightly better in enclosed basins like the Baltic Sea.

Abstract

The global ocean model NEMO is run in a series of stand-alone configurations (2015-2022) to investigate the potential for improving global medium-range storm surge forecasts by including the inverse barometer effect. The analysis focus on the residual water level, i.e. the water level variations not due to tides. Here, we compare a control experiment, where the inverse barometer effect was not included, against a run dynamically forced with mean sea level pressure. In the control experiment, the inverse barometer effect was then calculated diagnostically and added to the ocean model sea surface elevation, resulting in a total of three experiments to investigate. We compare against the global GESLA3 water level data set and find that the inclusion of the inverse barometer effect reduces the root-mean-square error by $\sim 1~cm$ on average. When we mask out all data where the observed residual water level is less than $\pm1$ or $\pm2$ standard deviations, including the inverse barometer effect reduces the RMS error by $4-5$ cm. While both methods reduce water level errors, there are regional differences in their performance. The run with dynamical pressure forcing is seen to perform slightly better than diagnostically adding the inverse barometer effect in enclosed basins such as the Baltic Sea. Finally, an ensemble forecast experiment with the Integrated Forecast System of the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts demonstrates that when the diagnostic inverse barometer effect is included for a severe storm surge event in the North Sea (Storm Xaver, December 2013), the ensemble spread of water level provides a stronger and earlier indication of the observed maximum surge level than the when the effect is excluded.