Singular spectrum analysis of storm surges and wave climates

The Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) was used to investigate different time scales within recordings of interest in coastal flooding research. The analysis was in particular applied to sea-level and wind wave measurements. Short time series of sea-level data collected during storm surge events by gauges located on offshore platforms in the Adriatic Sea were considered to demonstrate the actual efficiency of SSA in separating different components of recorded sea-level oscillation, and in detecting its main modal frequencies. This analysis also allowed for an investigation on energy decay of seiches, due, in particular, to the excitation of the first gravitational normal mode of the Adriatic Sea. Wind waves measurements were further used to test a simple procedure to apply SSA to records in presence of gaps. The procedure is shown to be effective, and it does not significantly affect the detection of the underlying annual cycle present in the data.