Eight of the ten largest cities in the world are located on the coast and 44% of the world’s population lives within 150 km of the ocean. 1 Unfortunately, coastal regions are often low-lying and thus susceptible to an increase in sea-surface elevation.
A storm surge is a potentially devastating rise in the sea surface caused by extratropical cyclones or by tropical cyclones such as hurricanes and typhoons. Surges can lead to large loss of human life, destruction of homes and civil infrastructure, and disruption of trade, fisheries, and industry. Since tropical cyclones have lower interior pressures and higher wind speeds than extratropical cyclones, they typically produce significantly higher surges than extratropical cyclones do. Their effects extend across the western Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the western Pacific and Indian oceans. Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that struck southern Louisiana and Mississippi in the US, and Cyclone Nargis,...
