Booth James F.

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Booth
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James F.
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  • Article
    Mechanics and historical evolution of sea level blowouts in New York harbor
    (MDPI, 2019-05-23) Gurumurthy, Praneeth ; Orton, Philip M. ; Talke, Stefan ; Georgas, Nickitas ; Booth, James F.
    Wind-induced sea level blowouts, measured as negative storm surge or extreme low water (ELW), produce public safety hazards and impose economic costs (e.g., to shipping). In this paper, we use a regional hydrodynamic numerical model to test the effect of historical environmental change and the time scale, direction, and magnitude of wind forcing on negative and positive surge events in the New York Harbor (NYH). Environmental sensitivity experiments show that dredging of shipping channels is an important factor affecting blowouts while changing ice cover and removal of other roughness elements are unimportant in NYH. Continuously measured water level records since 1860 show a trend towards smaller negative surge magnitudes (measured minus predicted water level) but do not show a significant change to ELW magnitudes after removing the sea-level trend. Model results suggest that the smaller negative surges occur in the deeper, dredged modern system due to a reduced tide-surge interaction, primarily through a reduced phase shift in the predicted tide. The sensitivity of surge to wind direction changes spatially with remote wind effects dominating local wind effects near NYH. Convergent coastlines that amplify positive surges also amplify negative surges, a process we term inverse coastal funneling.
  • Article
    Spatial patterns and intensity of the surface storm tracks in CMIP5 models
    (American Meteorological Society, 2017-04-03) Booth, James F. ; Kwon, Young-Oh ; Ko, Stanley ; Small, R. Justin ; Msadek, Rym
    To improve the understanding of storm tracks and western boundary current (WBC) interactions, surface storm tracks in 12 CMIP5 models are examined against ERA-Interim. All models capture an equatorward displacement toward the WBCs in the locations of the surface storm tracks’ maxima relative to those at 850 hPa. An estimated storm-track metric is developed to analyze the location of the surface storm track. It shows that the equatorward shift is influenced by both the lower-tropospheric instability and the baroclinicity. Basin-scale spatial correlations between models and ERA-Interim for the storm tracks, near-surface stability, SST gradient, and baroclinicity are calculated to test the ability of the GCMs’ match reanalysis. An intermodel comparison of the spatial correlations suggests that differences (relative to ERA-Interim) in the position of the storm track aloft have the strongest influence on differences in the surface storm-track position. However, in the North Atlantic, biases in the surface storm track north of the Gulf Stream are related to biases in the SST. An analysis of the strength of the storm tracks shows that most models generate a weaker storm track at the surface than 850 hPa, consistent with observations, although some outliers are found. A linear relationship exists among the models between storm-track amplitudes at 500 and 850 hPa, but not between 850 hPa and the surface. In total, the work reveals a dual role in forcing the surface storm track from aloft and from the ocean surface in CMIP5 models, with the atmosphere having the larger relative influence.