Thermomechanical Erosion Modelling of Baydaratskaya Bay, Russia with COSMOS

Pearson, S. and Lubbad, R. and Le, T. and Nairn, R. (2016) Thermomechanical Erosion Modelling of Baydaratskaya Bay, Russia with COSMOS. In: ICSE 2016 (8th International Conference on Scour and Erosion), 12-15 September 2016, Oxford, UK.

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Abstract

Rapid coastal erosion threatens Arctic coastal infrastructure, including communities and industrial installations. Erosion of permafrost depends on numerous processes, including thermal and mechanical behaviour of frozen and unfrozen soil, nearshore hydrodynamics, atmospheric forcing, and the presence of sea ice. The quantification and numerical modelling of these processes is essential to predicting Arctic coastal erosion. This paper presents a case study of Baydaratskaya Bay, Russia, using the COSMOS numerical model to predict thermal-mechanical erosion. In particular, this study focuses on thermoabrasional rather than thermodenudational processes. A field dataset of onshore thermal and mechanical soil characteristics was supplemented by sources from the literature to serve as input for the model. A detailed sensitivity analysis has been conducted to determine the influence of key parameters on coastal erosion rates at the study site. This case study highlights the need for expanded data collection on Arctic coastlines and provides direction for future investigations.

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