Chapter 3
Increasing Trends in Tropical Cyclone
Induced Surge Impacts Over North
Indian Ocean
Md. Abdus Sattar and Kevin K. W. Cheung
Abstract Tropical cyclone (TC) is a well-known natural disaster that can devastate
much of a society, environment, economy and result in people’s deaths. The North
Indian Ocean (NIO) is one ocean basin that is very prone to TC. TCs often cause
huge human casualties in densely populated communities like Bangladesh, India and
Myanmar around the Bay of Bengal (BoB) region of the NIO. Therefore, it is urgent
to analyse the impacts of TC-induced storm surge activity over NIO under different
climatic scenarios for better preparation. This study has been conducted aiming to
analyse potential impacts of TCs from storm surges both for the past (1990–2010) and
future (2075–2099). To fulfil research objective, future TCs scenarios were obtained
from the U.S. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory climate model under the IPCC
RCP warming scenarios. Then, JMA-MRI storm surge model for NIO were used for
estimating TCs induced surge heights. While almost all intense TCs had historically
made landfall around the BoB region, climate model projection simulated more
intense TCs over the AS, which indicates larger and more destructive TCs especially
around the coastal areas of the AS. It is also found the probability of TC track shift
from the eastern part to the western part of both basins at the end of this century. The
storm surge model estimates twice the size of the surge in the future and especially
over the AS. Furthermore, spatial variation of TCs activities and their associated
surge heights are found which largely depends on TC intensity and topography. In
conclusion, it is expected that higher maximum surge level over the NIO especially
over the AS basin will occur if the projected TC activity is robust. This study provides
crucial information that can be used for short- and long-term disaster preparation.
Keywords Tropical cyclone · Storm surge · Climate projection · Arabian Sea ·
Bay of Bengal
Md. A. Sattar (B) · K. K. W. Cheung
Department of Environmental Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: abdus.sattar@pstu.ac.bd
Md. A. Sattar
Department of Disaster Risk Management, Patuakhali Science and Technology University,
Dumki, Patuakhali, Bangladesh
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Djalante et al. (eds.), Integrated Research on Disaster Risks, Disaster Risk Reduction,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55563-4_3
37
Increasing Trends in Tropical Cyclone
Induced Surge Impacts Over North
Indian Ocean
Md. Abdus Sattar and Kevin K. W. Cheung
Abstract Tropical cyclone (TC) is a well-known natural disaster that can devastate
much of a society, environment, economy and result in people’s deaths. The North
Indian Ocean (NIO) is one ocean basin that is very prone to TC. TCs often cause
huge human casualties in densely populated communities like Bangladesh, India and
Myanmar around the Bay of Bengal (BoB) region of the NIO. Therefore, it is urgent
to analyse the impacts of TC-induced storm surge activity over NIO under different
climatic scenarios for better preparation. This study has been conducted aiming to
analyse potential impacts of TCs from storm surges both for the past (1990–2010) and
future (2075–2099). To fulfil research objective, future TCs scenarios were obtained
from the U.S. Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory climate model under the IPCC
RCP warming scenarios. Then, JMA-MRI storm surge model for NIO were used for
estimating TCs induced surge heights. While almost all intense TCs had historically
made landfall around the BoB region, climate model projection simulated more
intense TCs over the AS, which indicates larger and more destructive TCs especially
around the coastal areas of the AS. It is also found the probability of TC track shift
from the eastern part to the western part of both basins at the end of this century. The
storm surge model estimates twice the size of the surge in the future and especially
over the AS. Furthermore, spatial variation of TCs activities and their associated
surge heights are found which largely depends on TC intensity and topography. In
conclusion, it is expected that higher maximum surge level over the NIO especially
over the AS basin will occur if the projected TC activity is robust. This study provides
crucial information that can be used for short- and long-term disaster preparation.
Keywords Tropical cyclone · Storm surge · Climate projection · Arabian Sea ·
Bay of Bengal
Md. A. Sattar (B) · K. K. W. Cheung
Department of Environmental Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: abdus.sattar@pstu.ac.bd
Md. A. Sattar
Department of Disaster Risk Management, Patuakhali Science and Technology University,
Dumki, Patuakhali, Bangladesh
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Djalante et al. (eds.), Integrated Research on Disaster Risks, Disaster Risk Reduction,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55563-4_3
37