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Climate change can quicken India’s coastal winds
24 May 2010
Climate change would lead to higher wind speeds in offshore locations around India, a peninsula with long coastline, as an increase in the earth’s temperature would mean a corresponding rise in air pressure and wind activity, says a new study.
Published this month (4 May) in Ocean Engineering, the study
simulated the effect of climate change on design wind — the wind speed
which can be equalled or exceeded once in a specific number of years —
which is linked to the expected lifespan of harbour, coastal and
offshore structures.
“Future structures should be built considering the effects of
climate change and safety of existing structures needs to be verified.
When design wind changes, the corresponding forces change, and one
needs to have stronger structures to withstand this,” says Makarand
Chintamani Deo, professor of civil engineering at the Indian Institute
of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, and co-author of the study.
The model was built upon seven-year (1998-2005) wind observations
made available by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai.
The data was collected through a floating device that measures
met-ocean parameters, called a wave rider buoy, at two locations: one
off Goa on the west coast, and the other off Machilipatnam, to the east.
For the two locations, the increase in a 100-year wind period,
where the effect of climate change is taken into account, compared to
when it is not, varied from 44 per cent to as much as 74 per cent.
Deo agrees that the varying sample sizes — seven-year data to
simulate 100-year speeds — could be a source of uncertainty in the
results. But he told SciDev.Net that while “the magnitudes
shown can vary owing to so many alternative methods to adopt,
qualitatively the conclusion is difficult to change.”
Deo has co-authored another paper to be presented at the Ninth
International Conference on Hydro-Science and Engineering at IIT
Chennai in August that, apart from wind speed, also simulates wave
heights to incorporate the effect of climate change. Wave heights in
this model are seen to be 25 per cent to 59 per cent higher than when
the effect is not taken into account.
Source: SciDev
Source: SciDev
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