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Meteotsunamis Occurring Along the Southwest Coast of South America During an Intense
Storm
MATIAS CARVAJAL,1,2 MANUEL CONTRERAS-LOPEZ,3 PATRICIO WINCKLER,4 and IGNACIO SEPULVEDA5
Figure 2
Damage to coastal infrastructure in Valparaso Bay during the storm of August 8th, 2015 (adapted from Winckler et al. 2017). a Piers in
Caleta Portales, which suffered damage due to wave slamming. b Overtopping causing damage to a railway and a highway connecting the
cities of Valparaso and Vina del Mar. Yolanda beach c before and after the storm, experiencing massive erosion
the arrival times of the perturbations are consistent 3000 km in Chile and Peru. The time series of 1-min
with edge waves travelling in the southnorth direc- sampling interval were provided by the Hydrographic
tion, as shown in Sect. 5. and Oceanographic Service of the Chilean Navy
(SHOA) and UNESCO-IOC (http://www.ioc-
sealevelmonitoring.org). In this report, meteot-
3. Meteotsunamis Identification sunamis were classified as atmospherically induced
sea-level oscillations meeting the following criteria:
To identify meteotsunamis during the storm of (1) periods of sea-level disturbances ranging between
August 8th, 2015, we initially processed digital sea- 2 min and 2 h and (2) sea-level surface elevations
level records from 28 stations covering nearly exceeding four standard deviations in the residual
Meteotsunami in Southeast Pacific
signal, obtained by removing the astronomical tide MATLAB toolbox (Pawlowicz et al. 2002). A 2-h
and low-frequency oscillations beyond 2 h from the low-pass filter was then applied to the de-tided time
sea-level record (e.g., Monserrat et al. 2006; Pellikka series to remove low-frequency oscillations that fall
et al. 2014; Pattiaratchi and Wijeratne 2015; Bechle outside the range defined for meteotsunamis. This
et al. 2015). Surface elevation is defined herein as the step yielded two signals associated to long-period
vertical distance between the instantaneous sea-level phenomena (Fig. 3b) and high-frequency residual
and the 2-h mean sea-level. time series from which meteotsunamis can be
Although storm-induced sea-level oscillations identified (Fig. 3c). It is important to remark that
were observed in many tide stations along the Chi- the residual time series can contain infragravity
lean and south Peruvian coasts (Fig. 1b), in this waves between 30 s and 5 min (Munk 1950) as
study, we focused on those located within the storm well as swell waves that are aliased into the long-
path (Coquimbo, Pichidangui, Quintero, San Anto- wave signal which may be overlapped with
nio, and Bucalemu) and on two stations far away meteotsunamis. The separation of these oscillations
from the storm path (Arica and Callao). Unfortu- would require wave records at high sampling
nately, sea-level records in Valparaso, where most of intervals which were unfortunately unavailable at
the coastal damage was reported, failed to measure these or nearby stations. Note that the filtering
during the storm. process based on a cut-off period of 2 h for the
Sea-level records were first subjected to careful low-pass filter is not universally used. For instance,
quality control, in which outliers were removed. Pattiaratchi and Wijeratne (2014, 2015) used a 36-h
The time series for the selected stations are shown cut-off period, while Bechle et al. (2015) filtered
in Fig. 3a. The meteotsunami signal was extracted long-period oscillations beyond 6 h. We assume
from each record through a series of filtering pro- herein that high energy oscillations beyond 2 h are
cesses (e.g. Dragani et al. 2014). We first removed associated with other long-period phenomena (e.g.,
the tidal components from the original time series storm surge) and are thus removed from the
by applying a harmonic analysis with the T-Tide residual signal to isolate the meteotsunami.
Figure 3
Time series from tide stations located far away from the storm path (Callao and Arica) and in Central Chile (Coquimbo, Pichidangui,
Quintero, San Antonio, and Bucalemu). For each station, time series of 1-min sampling are shown for the period between August 7th and 11th,
2015, in UTC time. a Original time series, b 2-h low-pass filtered time series with the tidal component removed, and c residual time series
from which meteotsunamis are identified
M. Carvajal et al. Pure Appl. Geophys.
Meteotsunami in Southeast Pacific
edge waves. The WPS of Callao (Fig. 4a) and Arica respectively, which have the same order of magnitude
(not shown) shows that most of the incoming waves of the observed propagation speed inferred from the
are associated with relatively high periods of around records (Fig. 1c).
7 min, suggesting the presence of edge waves trav- To establish a possible relation between the high-
elling northward along the continental shelf from the frequency sea-level fluctuations and the atmospheric
storm region. This is supported by the similarity forcing, wind and atmospheric pressure records in the
between the propagation speed inferred from the coastal stations of Montemar, El Yali, and Las Cruces
records and the theoretical speed for edge waves are compared to the near tide stations of Quintero,
(e.g., Mei et al. 2005). Indeed, if we consider a Bucalemu, and San Antonio, respectively. The WPSs
constant average slope of 1.3% in the continental of atmospheric pressure in Fig. 6 show that the sea-
shelf of Chile and South Peru (200 m isobath is level oscillations at tide stations during August 8th
15 km offshore; Fig. 5a, b) and a wave period of were preceded by an increase in high-frequency
7 min, the theoretical phase speed for the Stokes fluctuations of atmospheric pressure over a broad
(n = 0) and first mode (n = 1) are 8.5 and 25.5 m/s, frequency band of up to 128 min. This frequency
Figure 5
a Map and depth contours of the bathymetry of central Chile. b Cross-sectional bathymetric profile of the Chilean margin, including the
ChilePeru trench, near Pichidangui, as depicted in a. The inset shows a zoom in the continental shelf. c Time series of atmospheric pressure
in La Punta, located in Robinson Crusoe Island, and San Antonio. The inset shows the cross-correlation function and the lag of maximum
correlation from which the propagation speed of the storm was estimated. Note that the high-frequency oscillations at both stations occur at a
similar time after the atmospheric pressure minima, which allows us to assume that these perturbations and the storm travelled at similar
speeds
Meteotsunami in Southeast Pacific
Figure 6
Meteorological records for a Montemar, b El Yali, and c Las Cruces, located near the tide stations of Quintero, Bucalemu, and San Antonio,
respectively. Upper panels show the original time series of wind. Middle panels show time series of atmospheric pressure of both original
records (grey line) and 2-h high pass filtered signal (black). The high-frequency sea-level oscillations for Quintero, Bucalemu, and San
Antonio are shown in light green for comparison. Lower panels show wavelet power spectrum (WPS) for the high-frequency time series of
atmospheric pressure plotted in middle panels. All times are in UTC
range enfolds the peaks of energy in sea-level fluc- mechanisms mentioned in the Introduction. Because
tuations observed in coastal stations of central Chile the storm propagated eastward and almost perpen-
(WPS in Fig. 4bd). The match between the spectral dicular to the shore, and then drifted southeast
energy content of atmospheric pressure and sea-level (Fig. 1b), we assume that Greenspan resonance was
records along the coast of central Chile provides not particularly relevant in this event. This specula-
evidence of the meteorological origin of the latter. tion leaves Proudman, shelf, and harbor resonance as
However, the intensity of the sea-level oscillations at possible candidates responsible for the large
the coast cannot be explained by the atmospheric meteotsunamis.
pressure disturbances alone. For instance, while high- To verify to what extent Proudman resonance
frequency atmospheric pressure oscillations at Las could have contributed, we calculated the offshore
Cruces (near San Antonio) were significantly larger region along the storm path where this resonant
than those at El Yali (near Bucalemu), the sea-level mechanism could have occurred. To this end, we
response was significantly stronger in Bucalemu than estimated the propagation speed of the atmospheric
in San Antonio. Wind records suggest that this vari- disturbance by cross-correlating the time series of
able also played a role in the meteotsunamis observed atmospheric pressure in La Punta, in Robinson Cru-
on the coast, since in contrast to the atmospheric soe Island (white triangle in Fig. 1b), and San
pressure observations, stronger winds were observed Antonio; both located 680 km apart and roughly
at El Yali than in Las Cruces (upper panels of Fig. 6). aligned with the storm path (Fig. 1b). The computed
lag of 381 min for the maximum correlation between
both time series (Fig. 5c) suggests that the storm
5. Discussion and Concluding Remarks travelled eastward at an average speed of 30 m/s.
Since the high-frequency atmospheric disturbances
The large meteotsunamis of up to 1.25 m crest-to- occurred systematically after the atmospheric pres-
trough heights observed on August 8th along central sure minima (Fig. 6), it is reasonable to assume that
Chile likely required at least one of the amplification these disturbances also travelled at a similar speed.
M. Carvajal et al. Pure Appl. Geophys.
Such inferred speed of 30 m/s is comparable to the subduction zones (CYCLO), Chile, and Dr. Samuel
p
phase speed of a long wave (c gh) travelling Hormazabal (PUCV) for his advice and encouragement
along the local continental shelf, which mean depth is on the use of timefrequency analysis techniques.
about 100 m (Fig. 5a, b). Although this simple P. Winckler would like to thank CONICYT (Chile)
analysis may support the occurrence of Proudman through its grant FONDECYT 11150003. I. Sepulveda
resonance, we presume that its contribution was thanks Fulbright and CONICYT for financial assistance
minor, since the local continental shelf is unusually in the form of studentships. We thank the following
narrow (*15 km) and thus the horizontal distance of institutions for providing meteorological data: Fondo de
coupling may be too small to explain the large Desarrollo Disciplinario de Medio Ambiente-Facultad
meteotsunamis observed at the coast (Hibiya and de Ingeniera (UPLA), Laboratorio de Meteorologa-
Kajiura 1982; Vilibic 2008). Indeed, being this con- Instituto de Geografa (PUCV), Estacion Costera de
tinental shelf one of the narrowest worldwide (Paris Investigaciones Marinas (PUC), Estacion Montemar-
et al. 2016), we believe that its response to both storm Facultad de Ciencias del Mar y de Recursos Naturales
surge and meteotsunamis is quite unique and should (UV), Secretara Regional Ministerial de Medio Ambi-
be further addressed. ente de Valparaso (MMA), SOPRAVAL, and
The contribution of shelf and harbor resonance is AGROSUPER. Finally, we would like to deeply thank
difficult to estimate, since, as mentioned above, sea- Alexander Rabinovich, Jadranka Sepic, and two anony-
level stations are located in coastal areas. Though the mous reviewers for providing useful comments and
background peaks obtained from wavelet analysis suggestions that greatly improved the manuscript.
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