About the project
Tides are one of the most persistent forces on our planet. There is increasing evidence that there have been significant changes in tides over the last 150 years. This PhD will be to undertake an ambitious, integrated and ground-breaking assessment of future changes in tides on global and local scales.
Tides influence coastal flooding and erosion, navigation, sediment transport, mixing and dissipation. Therefore, any changes to tides have wide ranging implications. Changes in tides are known to have occurred over thousands of years and longer, but tides have generally been considered to have been a stationary phenomenon over centennial time-scales. However, an increasing body of evidence demonstrates that there have been significant changes in tides over at least the last 150 years at a number of locations worldwide. Furthermore, several studies indicate that tides will alter considerably over the 21st Century and beyond in response to future mean sea-level rise. There is currently, however, a crucial lack of understanding of why widespread changes in tidal levels have occurred over the last 150 years with relatively small variations in water depth.
The overall aim of this PhD will be to undertake an ambitious, integrated and ground-breaking assessment of future changes in tides on global and local scales. Objective 1 is to accurately predict future changes in tides using a suite of global numerical models. Objective 2 will be to assess changes in future tides from the models at global coastal mega cities around the world. In objective 3, a case study location will be selected (such as the Thames Estuary) and the PhD candidate will undertake a detailed analysis, on a local estuary scale, to assess how climate, and other anthropogenic changes (e.g., dredging) are likely to influence tides and extreme sea levels at this location.
Supervisory team
The supervisory team includes supervisors from several organisations. Please contact the Lead Supervisor for more information about the team.
Training
The INSPIRE DTP programme provides comprehensive personal and professional development training alongside extensive opportunities for students to expand their multi-disciplinary outlook through interactions with a wide network of academic, research and industrial/policy partners. The student will be registered at the University of Southampton and hosted at National Oceanography Centre.
Specific training will include:
- hydrodynamic modelling
- Big Data analysis in Python or MATLAB
- Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD on leading high performance computing platforms
- operation and management of storm surge barriers; and coastal management
The PhD candidate will join the physical oceanography research group, working alongside other PhD candidates researching complementary coastal flood problems.