About the project
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) plays a critical role in decadal climate variability with impacts on sea level, regional weather patterns, and thus flooding, which poses a significant hazard to coastal infrastructure, including the UK’s Nuclear Power Plants. The overall goal of this project is to address fundamental questions about the causes and consequences of flooding around the UK’s coastlines over the next 100 years.
To protect key sectors, coastal defenses need to be built to withstand an extreme water event with just a 10-4 annual occurrence probability. With evidence for past major instabilities and recent modelling efforts indicating potential dramatic changes, understanding the, insofar overlooked, connection between the deep AMOC and flooding is increasingly important.
The overall goal of this project is to address fundamental questions about the causes and consequences of flooding around the UK’s coastlines over the next 100 years. You will use observations and model output to examine the rate of cold-water formation in the North Atlantic, its downstream impacts on the deep portion of the AMOC, and the link with surface variability related to flooding.
Specifically, you will link deep ocean changes to:
- sea level
- regional weather patterns
- coastal flooding risk.
Four key questions include:
- To what extent is the deep portion of the AMOC attributable to sea level variability around the UK and therefore coastal flood risks?
- How do shifts in the deep AMOCs properties and/or strength impact regional weather patterns and the above processes?
- How might longer-term decadal changes impact the UK’s capability to protect coastal areas, including Nuclear Power Plants, from flooding?
- Can we predict downstream changes around the UK from upstream observations of the deep ocean?
These impacts will be considered alongside key sector needs of the UK’s Nuclear Power Plants, using the Sizewell site as a case study. The conclusions of your work will underpin our knowledge of deep ocean drivers of flooding. In this way, your work will improve capability for future flood risk management, address key sector needs, and improve policy decisions.
Please contact the lead supervisor if you require further information about the project.
