Meteotsunami in the United Kingdom: The hidden hazard

Lewis, Clare; Smyth, Tim; Williams, David; Neumann, Jess; Cloke, Hannah

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145

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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145

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04 Nov 2022

| 04 Nov 2022

Meteotsunami in the United Kingdom: The hidden hazard

Clare Lewis, Tim Smyth, David Williams, Jess Neumann, and Hannah Cloke

Abstract. This paper examined the occurrence and seasonality of meteotsunami in the United Kingdom (UK) to present a revised and updated catalogue of events occurring since 1750. Previous case studies have alluded to a summer prevalence and rarity of this hazard in the UK. We have verified and classified 95 events using a developed set of identification criteria. The results have revealed a prominent seasonal pattern of winter events which are related to mid latitude depressions with precipitating convective weather systems. A geographical pattern has also emerged, highlighting three ‘hotspot’ areas at the highest risk from meteotsunami. The evidence reviewed, and new data presented here shows that the hazard posed by meteotsunami has been underestimated in the UK.

Received: 22 Oct 2022 – Discussion started: 04 Nov 2022

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17 Jul 2023

Meteotsunami in the United Kingdom: the hidden hazard

Clare Lewis, Tim Smyth, David Williams, Jess Neumann, and Hannah Cloke

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 2531–2546, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2531-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2531-2023, 2023

Short summary

Clare Lewis et al.

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-1145', Clare Lewis, 07 Nov 2022

Figure 2 is incorrect, please find here an updated version of this figure.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-AC1
RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2022-1145', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Nov 2022
Key results: Examination of the occurrence of meteotsunamis in the UK from 1750 to 2022. Authors Identified 95 meteotsunamis by investigating literatures, tide gauge records, and meteorological data.

Originality: This work may be considered as a review or an update of the previous studies such as Thompson et al. (2020) and Williams et al. (2021). For example, the seasonality of meteotsunami in the UK is already shown in Williams et al. (2021).

Data and methodology: generally good. Authors stated the data sources and outlined the methodologies clearly.

Clarity and context: generally very good. I have minor comments on this.

General comments:

The authors need to clarify the original findings of this study which are different from the previous ones. Because this study shares similarities with Williams et al. (2021) in the methodology and results.

It is unclear how the authors treated wind-driven waves. Wind-driven waves can induce infragravity(IG) waves which have periods of 2-30 minutes.

Minor comments:

L346 “This effect can be particularly apparent if the meteotsunami interacts with the continental slope where the wave can arrive hours after the original storm has dissipated or moved on.” I believe the authors mention Greenspan resurgence. Authors need to add references (Greenspan 1956, Bechle et al. 2016 and other recent studies) here.

L354 “tends is” -> is

L355 “ So, unless you are looking at the data you would not even know they had happened.” We do not need this sentence.

L367 Then, it would be great if authors can suggest other locations for tide gauges.

L384 “course” -> coarse

References:

Thompson, Julian, et al. "UK meteotsunamis: a revision and update on events and their frequency." 75.9 (2020): 281-287.

Williams, David A., et al. "An 8-yr meteotsunami climatology across northwest Europe: 2010–17." 51.4 (2021): 1145-1161.

Greenspan, Harvey Philip. "The generation of edge waves by moving pressure distributions." 1.6 (1956): 574-592.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-RC1
- AC2:
  'Reply to RC1', Clare Lewis, 07 Dec 2022
  Thank you and we are grateful for the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing valuable feedback on our manuscript. We have been able to incorporate changes to reflect most of your suggestions.
  Here is a point by point response to your feedback:
  Key results: Examination of the occurrence of meteotsunamis in the UK from 1750 to 2022. Authors Identified 95 meteotsunamis by investigating literatures, tide gauge records, and meteorological data.
  Originality: This work may be considered as a review or an update of the previous studies such as Thompson et al. (2020) and Williams et al. (2021). For example, the seasonality of meteotsunami in the UK is already shown in Williams et al. (2021).
  Data and methodology: generally good. Authors stated the data sources and outlined the methodologies clearly.
  Clarity and context: generally, very good. I have minor comments on this.
  General comments:
  The authors need to clarify the original findings of this study which are different from the previous ones. Because this study shares similarities with Williams et al. (2021) in the methodology and results.
  
  You have raised an important point here. In Line 66 we have stated that this study is indeed a form of update to the existing UK meteotsunami catalogue as presented by Thompson et al. However, their study does not address winter events and only goes up to 2016/7. Using our developed identification criteria for which there appears to be a lack of standardisation, we have verified, updated and extended the catalogue to September 2022 and are still currently logging events.
  Where seasonality is alluded to in Williams et al (2021) and is principally focused on precipitating atmospheric systems linked to NW European meteotsunami up to 2017. We have added precision by extending this study to focus in on UK waters only up to 2022 and have subsequently introduced a geographical element with respect to seasonality. This has allowed for the examination of ‘hotspot’ areas.
  We agree that our original findings may need to be clarified a little clearer throughout the manuscript so in addressing this we have highlighted these events in the results Table 1 and have included a paragraph in the discussion section as to any discounted events using our criteria and why.
  It is unclear how the authors treated wind-driven waves. Wind-driven waves can induce infragravity (IG) waves which have periods of 2-30 minutes.
  
  Thank you for this suggestion and we agree that this is a limitation of this study. We have considered wind within the identification criteria (L122 criteria 2d) but not in detail. However, there are varying opinions on this type of wave where researchers such as Kim et al (2021), Vilibic et al (2017), and Thotagamuwage and Pattiaratchi (2011) classify meteotsunami and infragravity waves as separate sea level oscillations. We agree that it would be interesting to explore this aspect however we do not have the scope or the data to include it within this study. This may be an area for further research and a potential future manuscript as a follow on from ours, and as such this suggestion has been included in discussion section 4.4 ‘What does this mean for the future?’
  Minor comments:
  L346 “This effect can be particularly apparent if the meteotsunami interacts with the continental slope where the wave can arrive hours after the original storm has dissipated or moved on.” I believe the authors mention Greenspan resurgence. Authors need to add references (Greenspan 1956, Bechle et al. 2016 and other recent studies) here.
  L354 “tends is” -> is
  L355 “So, unless you are looking at the data you would not even know they had happened.” We do not need this sentence.
  L367 Then, it would be great if authors can suggest other locations for tide gauges.
  L384 “course” -> coarse
  Thank you for pointing out these minor oversights. All spelling, grammar and referencing errors pointed out have been corrected accordingly. With L367, we have included at the end of this line some suggestions on potential tide gauge locations based on the occurrence rate of previous events. These include beach or estuary locations around Devon and Cornwall (such as Mevagissey or Perranporth) and North of Scotland (such as Dunnet or Port Stoth).
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-AC2
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2022-1145', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Jan 2023
The study by Lewis et al. on the meteotsunami hazard in the UK presents a revised meteotsunami catalogue based on specific identification criteria and discusses the features of meteotsunami hazard in the UK. I believe that the research objectives are clearly stated and reasonable. The attempt for standardization of meteotsunami identification seems also useful for future assessment of such events. Technically, I do not have many objections, the methodology and identification criteria seem plausible. However, since the study has a lot of similar parts to Williams et al. 2021 and is based on extending previous works, I would suggest including a more critical review of their findings, clearly highlighting the relationship to those referred (external) studies, and improving discussion and conclusions. The manuscript also needs further explanations in the Results, Discussion and Conclusions sections, as given below more specifically. Hence, the reviewer wants to see that the following comments are addressed in the manuscript before publication, thus encouraging the authors to revise the manuscript.

One of the main findings is given in the abstract as “a prominent seasonal pattern of winter events” which is contrary to previous studies showing “a summer prevalence”. How do you explain this, especially referring to those previous studies? The only explanation for this is given by the reliance on eyewitness reports in the historical records period.

The number of investigated meteotsunami events is indicated as 95 in the abstract. How many of them are newly identified? Please indicate.

Lines 27-28: “The characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transfers energy into the ocean initiating and amplifying a water wave that travels at the same speed as the atmospheric wave in a process known as Proudman resonance (Proudman, 1929).” It is not the characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transferring energy into the ocean. Please correct this sentence.

Introduction: The authors mention the coastal processes such as shoaling and refraction and their effect on wave amplification as the meteotsunami waves travel toward the coastline. However, meteotsunamis are multi-resonant phenomena and the major amplification mechanisms are due to those different resonance mechanisms which need to be definitely described in the Introduction part of such a manuscript. I also recommend including the fundamentals of meteotsunami generation, e.g. the inverse barometer law, only a few cm of waves would occur in the static condition, etc.

Lines 34-36: It is better to provide an overall one-paragraph summary of those studies and then kindly refer the reader to those papers without directly saying “see”.

Lines 38-39: In my opinion, it is better to write as “… due to the higher number of recorded events.” or “… due to more recorded events.” instead of “high frequency of recorded events” since “no solid conclusions can be drawn” also in the mentioned regions as emphasized by the authors in Line 403. If there is such a conclusion, please detail or provide references.

Lines 55-56: “Thirdly, there is no Government or regional policy in place to cover future adaptation strategies in the case of sea-level rise.” I believe this is a too generic sentence and needs to be more specific by relating it with “meteotsunami” since it seems like the statement points out the issues related to the “sea level rise” rather than the “meteotsunami research.”

Line 56: The word “underappreciation” is inappropriate here.

The research question in #4 is not clear and difficult to understand, I suggest revising the sentence.

Methodology

The sea level criteria used in the study seem the same as the ones by Williams et al. 2021. Any new approach should be highlighted.

Line 110: Figure 2b is misreferred.

Lines 117-118: “…the event that occurred on 1 July 2015.” Better to indicate also the location of the event.

Line 122: Atmospheric criteria d: Isn’t 5 m/s also too low for a threshold wind speed for meteotsunami generation? In Figure 1c, the wind speed almost exceeds 20 mph~ 9 mps for a long duration. Could the authors explain the rationale behind this selection?

2.3 “Wave data analysis for the 2010 to 2022 record.” I would suggest changing the heading of this section to “Tide gauge data analysis..” or “Sea level data analysis..” not to be confusing. I also recommend including the details of the sea level data processing such as how did the authors handle the gaps or spikes in the measured data?

Lines 196-199: Following the URL provided, which stations are used for the analysis? It would be better to provide.

Lines 218-226: Here it is important to further explain the criteria used for the determination of those specific events as meteotsunami or not contrary to previous studies. How did the authors end up with these identifications for the mentioned events?

Figure 2. Both Figures have the heading “Seasonal Distribution of UK Meteotsunami 1750 to 2009!” The figures also look the same?

Figure 3. A legend for dot size is necessary. How is maximum wave height represented here as mentioned in the figure caption?

Lines 241-243: I recommend providing the details of the “statistical analysis” mentioned here. What I mean is that the following questions arise while reading: How did you obtain these average wave height values? Did you take the maximum observed “peak-to-trough” value of each event? How did you extract those values?

Lines 247-248: “ Then from 2010, Kinlochbervie in northwest Scotland has been exposed 14 times experiencing the highest maxima of wave height at 0.51 m.” Here it is also not clear that Kinlochbervie has experienced exactly 0.51 m maximum wave height 14 times OR the maximum wave heights that Kinlochbervie has experienced exceeded 0.51 m 14 times. Please clarify.

3.3 Relationship between meteotsunami and winter storms: What is the reason behind selecting those specific two events “5 December 2013” and “20 October 2021?” I believe that it is important to mention.

Lines 280-282: Are there any supportive figures for the statements given in Section 3.3.1 and Section 3.3.2 claiming the meteotsunami identification criteria are met, e.g. “The first system which was detected as a mature echo signature on radar contained a sharp cold front (squall) which moved into Cornwall at approximately 0400 UTC with a simultaneous leading air pressure rise of 1.6 mb over 4 minutes followed by a sharp 2°C air temperature drop (criteria 2a/b).” For example, is it possible to show this radar capture or data from barometric measurement or refer the reader to the source where this information is acquired? I recommend showing those relationships between the criteria and the mentioned examples of met criteria for the selected events.

Table 1: It is better to indicate how this “maximum wave height” value is obtained, i.e., from measurement data or eyewitness observation?

4.4 What does this mean for the future?: The first recommendation is a too general statement which is neither limited to meteotsunami hazard nor the UK region. It does not also represent a “new” finding. The necessity for the sea level data in the order of minute resolution for meteotsunami hazard has been emphasized in several studies such as Vilibic and Sepic (2017), Dusek et al. (2019), Williams et al. (2021), Zemunik et al. (2022). I believe that it is better to rewrite this recommendation by considering these issues.

The previous comment applies to the second recommendation in Section 4.4. The multi-resonant nature of meteotsunami phenomena, the very well-known “harbor paradox” presented by Miles and Munk (1961) and the Q-factor concept, which has been studied by many researchers (some of the previous studies: Le Mehaute and Wilson, 1962, Raichlen, 1966, Rabinovich, 2009) are common features related to meteotsunami and how the catalogue and findings in this study contributed to the recommendation referring these features is not clear.

As I see, a major part of the findings of this study is discussed in Section 4.1 titled The UK meteotsunami. Therefore, it would be much better to provide a summary of the highlights of Section 4.1 in Section 5, Conclusions as well.

Minor Comments:

There are several sentences that suffer from missing verbs or extra words and they are difficult to understand which makes the manuscript hard to read.

Several spelling and punctuation errors exist.

I made several remarks in the annotated document, e.g. Line 47: “themselves” is redundant.

However, as I am not able to catch all of the errors and missing elements, the manuscript needs a careful check for those abovementioned issues.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-RC2
- AC3:
  'Reply on RC2', Clare Lewis, 18 Jan 2023
  Thank you and we are extremely grateful for the time and effort (especially over the holidays) that you have dedicated to providing such detailed and valuable feedback on our manuscript. Here is a point by point response to your feedback:
  The study by Lewis et al. on the meteotsunami hazard in the UK presents a revised meteotsunami catalogue based on specific identification criteria and discusses the features of meteotsunami hazard in the UK. I believe that the research objectives are clearly stated and reasonable. The attempt for standardization of meteotsunami identification seems also useful for future assessment of such events. Technically, I do not have many objections, the methodology and identification criteria seem plausible. However, since the study has a lot of similar parts to Williams et al. 2021 and is based on extending previous works, I would suggest including a more critical review of their findings, clearly highlighting the relationship to those referred (external) studies and improving discussion and conclusions. The manuscript also needs further explanations in the Results, Discussion and Conclusions sections, as given below more specifically. Hence, the reviewer wants to see that the following comments are addressed in the manuscript before publication, thus encouraging the authors to revise the manuscript.
  Thank you for the overview, we agree with your suggestion of a more critical review of the findings as a similar suggestion was put forward by reviewer 1 to which we will make a clearer distinction between previous works and new findings. The results, discussion and conclusions would indeed benefit from a revision to include more detailed explanations.
  One of the main findings is given in the abstract as “a prominent seasonal pattern of winter events” which is contrary to previous studies showing “a summer prevalence”. How do you explain this, especially referring to those previous studies? The only explanation for this is given by the reliance on eyewitness reports in the historical records period.
  
  We agree this seasonal pattern is the tone of the main findings and warrants a deeper explanation. Previous research, which was based heavily on historical accounts, has suggested that winter wave anomalies such as meteotsunami were ‘less’ likely than storm waves and surge, and winter data has not previously been interrogated for this reason. However, here we demonstrate that winter meteotsunami events have been ‘hidden’ in the record because they have been overshadowed by winter storms and storm surge events. Also, as you rightly pointed out there has been a biased in reporting with less eyewitness accounts in winter and more accounts in the summer due to more people been on the shoreline. This was witnessed first-hand last summer with the highly publicised event of 18^th June 2022 in Southern Ireland and the SW UK.
  The number of investigated meteotsunami events is indicated as 95 in the abstract. How many of them are newly identified? Please indicate.
  
  Many of the historical events were mis-identified in accounts as abnormal coastal flooding, non-tsunami, storm surge or unknown. By using the methodology, we re-identified them as meteotsunami which are now ‘new’ to the catalogue. In the recent record we have identified new events direct from the data. So overall, we have identified 35 ‘new’ meteotsunami. We will change Table 1 to distinguish these from the already correctly identified and verified events.
  Lines 27-28: “The characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transfers energy into the ocean initiating and amplifying a water wave that travels at the same speed as the atmospheric wave in a process known as Proudman resonance (Proudman, 1929).” It is not the characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transferring energy into the ocean. Please correct this sentence. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Introduction: The authors mention the coastal processes such as shoaling and refraction and their effect on wave amplification as the meteotsunami waves travel toward the coastline. However, meteotsunamis are multi-resonant phenomena and the major amplification mechanisms are due to those different resonance mechanisms which need to be definitely described in the Introduction part of such a manuscript. I also recommend including the fundamentals of meteotsunami generation, e.g. the inverse barometer law, only a few cm of waves would occur in the static condition, etc.
  
  Thanks for this suggestion, there was a more detailed description in our original draft, however, we shortened it so as to not lose the reader. We can re- introduce a paragraph back into the introduction highlighting these mechanisms in a little more detail.
  Lines 34-36: It is better to provide an overall one-paragraph summary of those studies and then kindly refer the reader to those papers without directly saying “see”. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Lines 38-39: In my opinion, it is better to write as “… due to the higher number of recorded events.” or “… due to more recorded events.” instead of “high frequency of recorded events” since “no solid conclusions can be drawn” also in the mentioned regions as emphasized by the authors in Line 403. If there is such a conclusion, please detail or provide references. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Lines 55-56: “Thirdly, there is no Government or regional policy in place to cover future adaptation strategies in the case of sea-level rise.” I believe this is a too generic sentence and needs to be more specific by relating it with “meteotsunami” since it seems like the statement points out the issues related to the “sea level rise” rather than the “meteotsunami research.” This will be amended as requested.
  
  Line 56: The word “underappreciation” is inappropriate here. Word will be removed.
  
  The research question in #4 is not clear and difficult to understand, I suggest revising the sentence. Research question/sentence will be revised to: ‘What are the atmospheric variables that can be correlated with meteotsunami events?’
  
  The sea level criteria used in the study seem the same as the ones by Williams et al. 2021. Any new approach should be highlighted.
  
  The sea level criteria used here are within the peak thresholds of 0.2 m to 0.3m that are used by many other researchers in the field (Williams et al. 2021, Dusek et al. 2019, Belche et al, 2016 and Sepic et al, 2012 and 2009). These thresholds are a tried and tested set of characteristics that reflect meteotsunami especially those that occur within UK waters. We opted to use the lower end of the threshold (0.2m) as this is more suitable for distinguishing a greater number of events that may have been missed at the higher end of the threshold. Anything below 0.2m would not be large enough to allow for accurate verification and the separation of the anomaly from any other water disturbances.
  Line 110: Figure 2b is misreferred. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Lines 117-118: “…the event that occurred on 1 July 2015.” Better to also indicate the location of the event. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Line 122: Atmospheric criteria d: Isn’t 5 m/s also too low for a threshold wind speed for meteotsunami generation? In Figure 1c, the wind speed almost exceeds 20 mph~ 9 m/s for a long duration. Could the authors explain the rationale behind this selection?
  
  Thank you for spotting this error, it is a typo and should be 10 m/s. This was selected as many other studies have recorded 10m wind speed variations of between 5 to 19 m/s (Olabarrieta et al. 2017), 5 to 20 m/s (Shi et al. 2019), 10 m/s (Williams et al. 2019) and 10 to 20 m/s (Pellikka et al. 2020), for example.
  3 “Wave data analysis for the 2010 to 2022 record.” I would suggest changing the heading of this section to “Tide gauge data analysis.” or “Sea level data analysis.” not to be confusing. I also recommend including the details of the sea level data processing such as how did the authors handle the gaps or spikes in the measured data?
  
  This will be amended as requested. Apart from the standard processing to remove any erroneous spikes and jumps outside of the parameters. We carried out a visual quality control where a 7 day plot of the data was evaluated to highlight any clear artificial spikes or gaps. Finally, any data points that had no accompanying air pressure changes were also excluded from any further analysis.
  Lines 196-199: Following the URL provided, which stations are used for the analysis? It would be better to provide. Station details will be added to text.
  
  Lines 218-226: Here it is important to further explain the criteria used for the determination of those specific events as meteotsunami or not contrary to previous studies. How did the authors end up with these identifications for the mentioned events? Good suggestion and we are happy to include and explain the criteria used into the text.
  
  Figure 2. Both Figures have the heading “Seasonal Distribution of UK Meteotsunami 1750 to 2009!” The figures also look the same? This was an oversight and was noted in AC1 comment with a copy of the new bar graph included.
  
  Figure 3. A legend for dot size is necessary. How is maximum wave height represented here as mentioned in the figure caption? This is a nice suggestion and the Figure will be adjusted to include a dot size key to make it easier to interpret.
  
  Lines 241-243: I recommend providing the details of the “statistical analysis” mentioned here. What I mean is that the following questions arise while reading: How did you obtain these average wave height values? Did you take the maximum observed “peak-to-trough” value of each event? How did you extract those values?
  
  We took the maximum wave amplitude value recorded for each event. This information will be added.
  Lines 247-248: “Then from 2010, Kinlochbervie in northwest Scotland has been exposed 14 times experiencing the highest maxima of wave height at 0.51 m.” Here it is also not clear that Kinlochbervie has experienced exactly 0.51 m maximum wave height 14 times OR the maximum wave heights that Kinlochbervie has experienced exceeded 0.51 m 14 times. Please clarify.
  
  This will be amended. The max wave height of 0.51m was experienced on 16/11/2016 during a single event, however, the location itself was exposed to meteotsunami 14 times in 12 years.
  3 Relationship between meteotsunami and winter storms: What is the reason behind selecting those specific two events “5 December 2013” and “20 October 2021?” I believe that it is important to mention.
  
  These two events were picked as they represent two different types of winter meteotsunami. The 5^{th of}December 2013 was a high media profile, complicated, large scale meteotsunami (19 tide gauges) with compound hazards including storm surge and high winds. Whereas, 20^th of October 2021 was an unregistered, low profile, simpler, more localised event (5 tide gauges). This information will be added to the manuscript.
  Lines 280-282: Are there any supportive figures for the statements given in Section 3.3.1 and Section 3.3.2 claiming the meteotsunami identification criteria are met, e.g. “The first system which was detected as a mature echo signature on radar contained a sharp cold front (squall) which moved into Cornwall at approximately 0400 UTC with a simultaneous leading air pressure rise of 1.6 mb over 4 minutes followed by a sharp 2°C air temperature drop (criteria 2a/b).” For example, is it possible to show this radar capture or data from barometric measurement or refer the reader to the source where this information is acquired? I recommend showing those relationships between the criteria and the mentioned examples of met criteria for the selected events.
  
  We agree and will happily include figures showing visual representations to collaborate the criteria.
  Table 1: It is better to indicate how this “maximum wave height” value is obtained, i.e., from measurement data or eyewitness observation?
  
  As mentioned in the text (L148) it is a general rule that any event within the historical record can be assumed to have been from eyewitness accounts due to the lack of high frequency instrumentation. Any event post 2009 has been verified by quantitative data. This will of course be noted a little clearer in the methodology section and can be easily included in Table 1 if required.
  4 What does this mean for the future? The first recommendation is a too general statement which is neither limited to meteotsunami hazard nor the UK region. It does not also represent a “new” finding. The necessity for the sea level data in the order of minute resolution for meteotsunami hazard has been emphasized in several studies such as Vilibic and Sepic (2017), Dusek et al. (2019), Williams et al. (2021), Zemunik et al. (2022). I believe that it is better to rewrite this recommendation by considering these issues.
  
  We agree to a point and although this may not be a ‘new’ finding it is extremely important in terms of UK meteotsunami. To clarify this we will add a section to the manuscript (probably after L383) that highlights certain events in the catalogue that we uncovered in the 1 minute tide gauge data that were not so easy to locate in the 15 minute data. Events such as 2^nd of October 2021, 20^th October 2021, 27^th November 2021 and 19^th July 2022 were all clearly visible in the 1 minute data but only slightly visible or not at all in the 15 minute data. This opens up an issue for many events with wave periods of under 15 minutes to be potentially missed out of the catalogue, proving that this is inaccurate recording of events in the future.
  The previous comment applies to the second recommendation in Section 4.4. The multi-resonant nature of meteotsunami phenomena, the very well-known “harbour paradox” presented by Miles and Munk (1961) and the Q-factor concept, which has been studied by many researchers (some of the previous studies: Le Mehaute and Wilson, 1962, Raichlen, 1966, Rabinovich, 2009) are common features related to meteotsunami and how the catalogue and findings in this study contributed to the recommendation referring these features is not clear.
  
  We will clarify our meaning and rewrite this part. The point we are putting forward is that now we have highlighted the presence and frequency of winter meteotsunami and coastal defences (human and natural) need to consider this new data when being adjusted for the future.
  As I see, a major part of the findings of this study is discussed in Section 4.1 titled The UK meteotsunami. Therefore, it would be much better to provide a summary of the highlights of Section 4.1 in Section 5, Conclusions as well.
  
  This is a great suggestion, and the conclusion section will be adjusted to include a summary of the highlights of section 4.1
  Minor Comments:
  There are several sentences that suffer from missing verbs or extra words, and they are difficult to understand which makes the manuscript hard to read.
  
  Several spelling and punctuation errors exist.
  
  I made several remarks in the annotated document, e.g. Line 47: “themselves” is redundant.
  
  However, as I am not able to catch all of the errors and missing elements, the manuscript needs a careful check for those abovementioned issues.
  
  We would like to thank you again for taking the time to provide such an in depth and constructive review for which we have taken your requests on board and will attempt to incorporate them. The manuscript will of course be subjected to a careful spelling, grammar and flow check and will be adjusted as needed.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-AC3

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-1145', Clare Lewis, 07 Nov 2022

Figure 2 is incorrect, please find here an updated version of this figure.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-AC1
RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2022-1145', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Nov 2022
Key results: Examination of the occurrence of meteotsunamis in the UK from 1750 to 2022. Authors Identified 95 meteotsunamis by investigating literatures, tide gauge records, and meteorological data.

Originality: This work may be considered as a review or an update of the previous studies such as Thompson et al. (2020) and Williams et al. (2021). For example, the seasonality of meteotsunami in the UK is already shown in Williams et al. (2021).

Data and methodology: generally good. Authors stated the data sources and outlined the methodologies clearly.

Clarity and context: generally very good. I have minor comments on this.

General comments:

The authors need to clarify the original findings of this study which are different from the previous ones. Because this study shares similarities with Williams et al. (2021) in the methodology and results.

It is unclear how the authors treated wind-driven waves. Wind-driven waves can induce infragravity(IG) waves which have periods of 2-30 minutes.

Minor comments:

L346 “This effect can be particularly apparent if the meteotsunami interacts with the continental slope where the wave can arrive hours after the original storm has dissipated or moved on.” I believe the authors mention Greenspan resurgence. Authors need to add references (Greenspan 1956, Bechle et al. 2016 and other recent studies) here.

L354 “tends is” -> is

L355 “ So, unless you are looking at the data you would not even know they had happened.” We do not need this sentence.

L367 Then, it would be great if authors can suggest other locations for tide gauges.

L384 “course” -> coarse

References:

Thompson, Julian, et al. "UK meteotsunamis: a revision and update on events and their frequency." 75.9 (2020): 281-287.

Williams, David A., et al. "An 8-yr meteotsunami climatology across northwest Europe: 2010–17." 51.4 (2021): 1145-1161.

Greenspan, Harvey Philip. "The generation of edge waves by moving pressure distributions." 1.6 (1956): 574-592.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-RC1
- AC2:
  'Reply to RC1', Clare Lewis, 07 Dec 2022
  Thank you and we are grateful for the time and effort that you have dedicated to providing valuable feedback on our manuscript. We have been able to incorporate changes to reflect most of your suggestions.
  Here is a point by point response to your feedback:
  Key results: Examination of the occurrence of meteotsunamis in the UK from 1750 to 2022. Authors Identified 95 meteotsunamis by investigating literatures, tide gauge records, and meteorological data.
  Originality: This work may be considered as a review or an update of the previous studies such as Thompson et al. (2020) and Williams et al. (2021). For example, the seasonality of meteotsunami in the UK is already shown in Williams et al. (2021).
  Data and methodology: generally good. Authors stated the data sources and outlined the methodologies clearly.
  Clarity and context: generally, very good. I have minor comments on this.
  General comments:
  The authors need to clarify the original findings of this study which are different from the previous ones. Because this study shares similarities with Williams et al. (2021) in the methodology and results.
  
  You have raised an important point here. In Line 66 we have stated that this study is indeed a form of update to the existing UK meteotsunami catalogue as presented by Thompson et al. However, their study does not address winter events and only goes up to 2016/7. Using our developed identification criteria for which there appears to be a lack of standardisation, we have verified, updated and extended the catalogue to September 2022 and are still currently logging events.
  Where seasonality is alluded to in Williams et al (2021) and is principally focused on precipitating atmospheric systems linked to NW European meteotsunami up to 2017. We have added precision by extending this study to focus in on UK waters only up to 2022 and have subsequently introduced a geographical element with respect to seasonality. This has allowed for the examination of ‘hotspot’ areas.
  We agree that our original findings may need to be clarified a little clearer throughout the manuscript so in addressing this we have highlighted these events in the results Table 1 and have included a paragraph in the discussion section as to any discounted events using our criteria and why.
  It is unclear how the authors treated wind-driven waves. Wind-driven waves can induce infragravity (IG) waves which have periods of 2-30 minutes.
  
  Thank you for this suggestion and we agree that this is a limitation of this study. We have considered wind within the identification criteria (L122 criteria 2d) but not in detail. However, there are varying opinions on this type of wave where researchers such as Kim et al (2021), Vilibic et al (2017), and Thotagamuwage and Pattiaratchi (2011) classify meteotsunami and infragravity waves as separate sea level oscillations. We agree that it would be interesting to explore this aspect however we do not have the scope or the data to include it within this study. This may be an area for further research and a potential future manuscript as a follow on from ours, and as such this suggestion has been included in discussion section 4.4 ‘What does this mean for the future?’
  Minor comments:
  L346 “This effect can be particularly apparent if the meteotsunami interacts with the continental slope where the wave can arrive hours after the original storm has dissipated or moved on.” I believe the authors mention Greenspan resurgence. Authors need to add references (Greenspan 1956, Bechle et al. 2016 and other recent studies) here.
  L354 “tends is” -> is
  L355 “So, unless you are looking at the data you would not even know they had happened.” We do not need this sentence.
  L367 Then, it would be great if authors can suggest other locations for tide gauges.
  L384 “course” -> coarse
  Thank you for pointing out these minor oversights. All spelling, grammar and referencing errors pointed out have been corrected accordingly. With L367, we have included at the end of this line some suggestions on potential tide gauge locations based on the occurrence rate of previous events. These include beach or estuary locations around Devon and Cornwall (such as Mevagissey or Perranporth) and North of Scotland (such as Dunnet or Port Stoth).
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-AC2
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2022-1145', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Jan 2023
The study by Lewis et al. on the meteotsunami hazard in the UK presents a revised meteotsunami catalogue based on specific identification criteria and discusses the features of meteotsunami hazard in the UK. I believe that the research objectives are clearly stated and reasonable. The attempt for standardization of meteotsunami identification seems also useful for future assessment of such events. Technically, I do not have many objections, the methodology and identification criteria seem plausible. However, since the study has a lot of similar parts to Williams et al. 2021 and is based on extending previous works, I would suggest including a more critical review of their findings, clearly highlighting the relationship to those referred (external) studies, and improving discussion and conclusions. The manuscript also needs further explanations in the Results, Discussion and Conclusions sections, as given below more specifically. Hence, the reviewer wants to see that the following comments are addressed in the manuscript before publication, thus encouraging the authors to revise the manuscript.

One of the main findings is given in the abstract as “a prominent seasonal pattern of winter events” which is contrary to previous studies showing “a summer prevalence”. How do you explain this, especially referring to those previous studies? The only explanation for this is given by the reliance on eyewitness reports in the historical records period.

The number of investigated meteotsunami events is indicated as 95 in the abstract. How many of them are newly identified? Please indicate.

Lines 27-28: “The characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transfers energy into the ocean initiating and amplifying a water wave that travels at the same speed as the atmospheric wave in a process known as Proudman resonance (Proudman, 1929).” It is not the characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transferring energy into the ocean. Please correct this sentence.

Introduction: The authors mention the coastal processes such as shoaling and refraction and their effect on wave amplification as the meteotsunami waves travel toward the coastline. However, meteotsunamis are multi-resonant phenomena and the major amplification mechanisms are due to those different resonance mechanisms which need to be definitely described in the Introduction part of such a manuscript. I also recommend including the fundamentals of meteotsunami generation, e.g. the inverse barometer law, only a few cm of waves would occur in the static condition, etc.

Lines 34-36: It is better to provide an overall one-paragraph summary of those studies and then kindly refer the reader to those papers without directly saying “see”.

Lines 38-39: In my opinion, it is better to write as “… due to the higher number of recorded events.” or “… due to more recorded events.” instead of “high frequency of recorded events” since “no solid conclusions can be drawn” also in the mentioned regions as emphasized by the authors in Line 403. If there is such a conclusion, please detail or provide references.

Lines 55-56: “Thirdly, there is no Government or regional policy in place to cover future adaptation strategies in the case of sea-level rise.” I believe this is a too generic sentence and needs to be more specific by relating it with “meteotsunami” since it seems like the statement points out the issues related to the “sea level rise” rather than the “meteotsunami research.”

Line 56: The word “underappreciation” is inappropriate here.

The research question in #4 is not clear and difficult to understand, I suggest revising the sentence.

Methodology

The sea level criteria used in the study seem the same as the ones by Williams et al. 2021. Any new approach should be highlighted.

Line 110: Figure 2b is misreferred.

Lines 117-118: “…the event that occurred on 1 July 2015.” Better to indicate also the location of the event.

Line 122: Atmospheric criteria d: Isn’t 5 m/s also too low for a threshold wind speed for meteotsunami generation? In Figure 1c, the wind speed almost exceeds 20 mph~ 9 mps for a long duration. Could the authors explain the rationale behind this selection?

2.3 “Wave data analysis for the 2010 to 2022 record.” I would suggest changing the heading of this section to “Tide gauge data analysis..” or “Sea level data analysis..” not to be confusing. I also recommend including the details of the sea level data processing such as how did the authors handle the gaps or spikes in the measured data?

Lines 196-199: Following the URL provided, which stations are used for the analysis? It would be better to provide.

Lines 218-226: Here it is important to further explain the criteria used for the determination of those specific events as meteotsunami or not contrary to previous studies. How did the authors end up with these identifications for the mentioned events?

Figure 2. Both Figures have the heading “Seasonal Distribution of UK Meteotsunami 1750 to 2009!” The figures also look the same?

Figure 3. A legend for dot size is necessary. How is maximum wave height represented here as mentioned in the figure caption?

Lines 241-243: I recommend providing the details of the “statistical analysis” mentioned here. What I mean is that the following questions arise while reading: How did you obtain these average wave height values? Did you take the maximum observed “peak-to-trough” value of each event? How did you extract those values?

Lines 247-248: “ Then from 2010, Kinlochbervie in northwest Scotland has been exposed 14 times experiencing the highest maxima of wave height at 0.51 m.” Here it is also not clear that Kinlochbervie has experienced exactly 0.51 m maximum wave height 14 times OR the maximum wave heights that Kinlochbervie has experienced exceeded 0.51 m 14 times. Please clarify.

3.3 Relationship between meteotsunami and winter storms: What is the reason behind selecting those specific two events “5 December 2013” and “20 October 2021?” I believe that it is important to mention.

Lines 280-282: Are there any supportive figures for the statements given in Section 3.3.1 and Section 3.3.2 claiming the meteotsunami identification criteria are met, e.g. “The first system which was detected as a mature echo signature on radar contained a sharp cold front (squall) which moved into Cornwall at approximately 0400 UTC with a simultaneous leading air pressure rise of 1.6 mb over 4 minutes followed by a sharp 2°C air temperature drop (criteria 2a/b).” For example, is it possible to show this radar capture or data from barometric measurement or refer the reader to the source where this information is acquired? I recommend showing those relationships between the criteria and the mentioned examples of met criteria for the selected events.

Table 1: It is better to indicate how this “maximum wave height” value is obtained, i.e., from measurement data or eyewitness observation?

4.4 What does this mean for the future?: The first recommendation is a too general statement which is neither limited to meteotsunami hazard nor the UK region. It does not also represent a “new” finding. The necessity for the sea level data in the order of minute resolution for meteotsunami hazard has been emphasized in several studies such as Vilibic and Sepic (2017), Dusek et al. (2019), Williams et al. (2021), Zemunik et al. (2022). I believe that it is better to rewrite this recommendation by considering these issues.

The previous comment applies to the second recommendation in Section 4.4. The multi-resonant nature of meteotsunami phenomena, the very well-known “harbor paradox” presented by Miles and Munk (1961) and the Q-factor concept, which has been studied by many researchers (some of the previous studies: Le Mehaute and Wilson, 1962, Raichlen, 1966, Rabinovich, 2009) are common features related to meteotsunami and how the catalogue and findings in this study contributed to the recommendation referring these features is not clear.

As I see, a major part of the findings of this study is discussed in Section 4.1 titled The UK meteotsunami. Therefore, it would be much better to provide a summary of the highlights of Section 4.1 in Section 5, Conclusions as well.

Minor Comments:

There are several sentences that suffer from missing verbs or extra words and they are difficult to understand which makes the manuscript hard to read.

Several spelling and punctuation errors exist.

I made several remarks in the annotated document, e.g. Line 47: “themselves” is redundant.

However, as I am not able to catch all of the errors and missing elements, the manuscript needs a careful check for those abovementioned issues.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-RC2
- AC3:
  'Reply on RC2', Clare Lewis, 18 Jan 2023
  Thank you and we are extremely grateful for the time and effort (especially over the holidays) that you have dedicated to providing such detailed and valuable feedback on our manuscript. Here is a point by point response to your feedback:
  The study by Lewis et al. on the meteotsunami hazard in the UK presents a revised meteotsunami catalogue based on specific identification criteria and discusses the features of meteotsunami hazard in the UK. I believe that the research objectives are clearly stated and reasonable. The attempt for standardization of meteotsunami identification seems also useful for future assessment of such events. Technically, I do not have many objections, the methodology and identification criteria seem plausible. However, since the study has a lot of similar parts to Williams et al. 2021 and is based on extending previous works, I would suggest including a more critical review of their findings, clearly highlighting the relationship to those referred (external) studies and improving discussion and conclusions. The manuscript also needs further explanations in the Results, Discussion and Conclusions sections, as given below more specifically. Hence, the reviewer wants to see that the following comments are addressed in the manuscript before publication, thus encouraging the authors to revise the manuscript.
  Thank you for the overview, we agree with your suggestion of a more critical review of the findings as a similar suggestion was put forward by reviewer 1 to which we will make a clearer distinction between previous works and new findings. The results, discussion and conclusions would indeed benefit from a revision to include more detailed explanations.
  One of the main findings is given in the abstract as “a prominent seasonal pattern of winter events” which is contrary to previous studies showing “a summer prevalence”. How do you explain this, especially referring to those previous studies? The only explanation for this is given by the reliance on eyewitness reports in the historical records period.
  
  We agree this seasonal pattern is the tone of the main findings and warrants a deeper explanation. Previous research, which was based heavily on historical accounts, has suggested that winter wave anomalies such as meteotsunami were ‘less’ likely than storm waves and surge, and winter data has not previously been interrogated for this reason. However, here we demonstrate that winter meteotsunami events have been ‘hidden’ in the record because they have been overshadowed by winter storms and storm surge events. Also, as you rightly pointed out there has been a biased in reporting with less eyewitness accounts in winter and more accounts in the summer due to more people been on the shoreline. This was witnessed first-hand last summer with the highly publicised event of 18^th June 2022 in Southern Ireland and the SW UK.
  The number of investigated meteotsunami events is indicated as 95 in the abstract. How many of them are newly identified? Please indicate.
  
  Many of the historical events were mis-identified in accounts as abnormal coastal flooding, non-tsunami, storm surge or unknown. By using the methodology, we re-identified them as meteotsunami which are now ‘new’ to the catalogue. In the recent record we have identified new events direct from the data. So overall, we have identified 35 ‘new’ meteotsunami. We will change Table 1 to distinguish these from the already correctly identified and verified events.
  Lines 27-28: “The characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transfers energy into the ocean initiating and amplifying a water wave that travels at the same speed as the atmospheric wave in a process known as Proudman resonance (Proudman, 1929).” It is not the characteristics of the atmospheric disturbance transferring energy into the ocean. Please correct this sentence. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Introduction: The authors mention the coastal processes such as shoaling and refraction and their effect on wave amplification as the meteotsunami waves travel toward the coastline. However, meteotsunamis are multi-resonant phenomena and the major amplification mechanisms are due to those different resonance mechanisms which need to be definitely described in the Introduction part of such a manuscript. I also recommend including the fundamentals of meteotsunami generation, e.g. the inverse barometer law, only a few cm of waves would occur in the static condition, etc.
  
  Thanks for this suggestion, there was a more detailed description in our original draft, however, we shortened it so as to not lose the reader. We can re- introduce a paragraph back into the introduction highlighting these mechanisms in a little more detail.
  Lines 34-36: It is better to provide an overall one-paragraph summary of those studies and then kindly refer the reader to those papers without directly saying “see”. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Lines 38-39: In my opinion, it is better to write as “… due to the higher number of recorded events.” or “… due to more recorded events.” instead of “high frequency of recorded events” since “no solid conclusions can be drawn” also in the mentioned regions as emphasized by the authors in Line 403. If there is such a conclusion, please detail or provide references. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Lines 55-56: “Thirdly, there is no Government or regional policy in place to cover future adaptation strategies in the case of sea-level rise.” I believe this is a too generic sentence and needs to be more specific by relating it with “meteotsunami” since it seems like the statement points out the issues related to the “sea level rise” rather than the “meteotsunami research.” This will be amended as requested.
  
  Line 56: The word “underappreciation” is inappropriate here. Word will be removed.
  
  The research question in #4 is not clear and difficult to understand, I suggest revising the sentence. Research question/sentence will be revised to: ‘What are the atmospheric variables that can be correlated with meteotsunami events?’
  
  The sea level criteria used in the study seem the same as the ones by Williams et al. 2021. Any new approach should be highlighted.
  
  The sea level criteria used here are within the peak thresholds of 0.2 m to 0.3m that are used by many other researchers in the field (Williams et al. 2021, Dusek et al. 2019, Belche et al, 2016 and Sepic et al, 2012 and 2009). These thresholds are a tried and tested set of characteristics that reflect meteotsunami especially those that occur within UK waters. We opted to use the lower end of the threshold (0.2m) as this is more suitable for distinguishing a greater number of events that may have been missed at the higher end of the threshold. Anything below 0.2m would not be large enough to allow for accurate verification and the separation of the anomaly from any other water disturbances.
  Line 110: Figure 2b is misreferred. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Lines 117-118: “…the event that occurred on 1 July 2015.” Better to also indicate the location of the event. This will be amended as requested.
  
  Line 122: Atmospheric criteria d: Isn’t 5 m/s also too low for a threshold wind speed for meteotsunami generation? In Figure 1c, the wind speed almost exceeds 20 mph~ 9 m/s for a long duration. Could the authors explain the rationale behind this selection?
  
  Thank you for spotting this error, it is a typo and should be 10 m/s. This was selected as many other studies have recorded 10m wind speed variations of between 5 to 19 m/s (Olabarrieta et al. 2017), 5 to 20 m/s (Shi et al. 2019), 10 m/s (Williams et al. 2019) and 10 to 20 m/s (Pellikka et al. 2020), for example.
  3 “Wave data analysis for the 2010 to 2022 record.” I would suggest changing the heading of this section to “Tide gauge data analysis.” or “Sea level data analysis.” not to be confusing. I also recommend including the details of the sea level data processing such as how did the authors handle the gaps or spikes in the measured data?
  
  This will be amended as requested. Apart from the standard processing to remove any erroneous spikes and jumps outside of the parameters. We carried out a visual quality control where a 7 day plot of the data was evaluated to highlight any clear artificial spikes or gaps. Finally, any data points that had no accompanying air pressure changes were also excluded from any further analysis.
  Lines 196-199: Following the URL provided, which stations are used for the analysis? It would be better to provide. Station details will be added to text.
  
  Lines 218-226: Here it is important to further explain the criteria used for the determination of those specific events as meteotsunami or not contrary to previous studies. How did the authors end up with these identifications for the mentioned events? Good suggestion and we are happy to include and explain the criteria used into the text.
  
  Figure 2. Both Figures have the heading “Seasonal Distribution of UK Meteotsunami 1750 to 2009!” The figures also look the same? This was an oversight and was noted in AC1 comment with a copy of the new bar graph included.
  
  Figure 3. A legend for dot size is necessary. How is maximum wave height represented here as mentioned in the figure caption? This is a nice suggestion and the Figure will be adjusted to include a dot size key to make it easier to interpret.
  
  Lines 241-243: I recommend providing the details of the “statistical analysis” mentioned here. What I mean is that the following questions arise while reading: How did you obtain these average wave height values? Did you take the maximum observed “peak-to-trough” value of each event? How did you extract those values?
  
  We took the maximum wave amplitude value recorded for each event. This information will be added.
  Lines 247-248: “Then from 2010, Kinlochbervie in northwest Scotland has been exposed 14 times experiencing the highest maxima of wave height at 0.51 m.” Here it is also not clear that Kinlochbervie has experienced exactly 0.51 m maximum wave height 14 times OR the maximum wave heights that Kinlochbervie has experienced exceeded 0.51 m 14 times. Please clarify.
  
  This will be amended. The max wave height of 0.51m was experienced on 16/11/2016 during a single event, however, the location itself was exposed to meteotsunami 14 times in 12 years.
  3 Relationship between meteotsunami and winter storms: What is the reason behind selecting those specific two events “5 December 2013” and “20 October 2021?” I believe that it is important to mention.
  
  These two events were picked as they represent two different types of winter meteotsunami. The 5^{th of}December 2013 was a high media profile, complicated, large scale meteotsunami (19 tide gauges) with compound hazards including storm surge and high winds. Whereas, 20^th of October 2021 was an unregistered, low profile, simpler, more localised event (5 tide gauges). This information will be added to the manuscript.
  Lines 280-282: Are there any supportive figures for the statements given in Section 3.3.1 and Section 3.3.2 claiming the meteotsunami identification criteria are met, e.g. “The first system which was detected as a mature echo signature on radar contained a sharp cold front (squall) which moved into Cornwall at approximately 0400 UTC with a simultaneous leading air pressure rise of 1.6 mb over 4 minutes followed by a sharp 2°C air temperature drop (criteria 2a/b).” For example, is it possible to show this radar capture or data from barometric measurement or refer the reader to the source where this information is acquired? I recommend showing those relationships between the criteria and the mentioned examples of met criteria for the selected events.
  
  We agree and will happily include figures showing visual representations to collaborate the criteria.
  Table 1: It is better to indicate how this “maximum wave height” value is obtained, i.e., from measurement data or eyewitness observation?
  
  As mentioned in the text (L148) it is a general rule that any event within the historical record can be assumed to have been from eyewitness accounts due to the lack of high frequency instrumentation. Any event post 2009 has been verified by quantitative data. This will of course be noted a little clearer in the methodology section and can be easily included in Table 1 if required.
  4 What does this mean for the future? The first recommendation is a too general statement which is neither limited to meteotsunami hazard nor the UK region. It does not also represent a “new” finding. The necessity for the sea level data in the order of minute resolution for meteotsunami hazard has been emphasized in several studies such as Vilibic and Sepic (2017), Dusek et al. (2019), Williams et al. (2021), Zemunik et al. (2022). I believe that it is better to rewrite this recommendation by considering these issues.
  
  We agree to a point and although this may not be a ‘new’ finding it is extremely important in terms of UK meteotsunami. To clarify this we will add a section to the manuscript (probably after L383) that highlights certain events in the catalogue that we uncovered in the 1 minute tide gauge data that were not so easy to locate in the 15 minute data. Events such as 2^nd of October 2021, 20^th October 2021, 27^th November 2021 and 19^th July 2022 were all clearly visible in the 1 minute data but only slightly visible or not at all in the 15 minute data. This opens up an issue for many events with wave periods of under 15 minutes to be potentially missed out of the catalogue, proving that this is inaccurate recording of events in the future.
  The previous comment applies to the second recommendation in Section 4.4. The multi-resonant nature of meteotsunami phenomena, the very well-known “harbour paradox” presented by Miles and Munk (1961) and the Q-factor concept, which has been studied by many researchers (some of the previous studies: Le Mehaute and Wilson, 1962, Raichlen, 1966, Rabinovich, 2009) are common features related to meteotsunami and how the catalogue and findings in this study contributed to the recommendation referring these features is not clear.
  
  We will clarify our meaning and rewrite this part. The point we are putting forward is that now we have highlighted the presence and frequency of winter meteotsunami and coastal defences (human and natural) need to consider this new data when being adjusted for the future.
  As I see, a major part of the findings of this study is discussed in Section 4.1 titled The UK meteotsunami. Therefore, it would be much better to provide a summary of the highlights of Section 4.1 in Section 5, Conclusions as well.
  
  This is a great suggestion, and the conclusion section will be adjusted to include a summary of the highlights of section 4.1
  Minor Comments:
  There are several sentences that suffer from missing verbs or extra words, and they are difficult to understand which makes the manuscript hard to read.
  
  Several spelling and punctuation errors exist.
  
  I made several remarks in the annotated document, e.g. Line 47: “themselves” is redundant.
  
  However, as I am not able to catch all of the errors and missing elements, the manuscript needs a careful check for those abovementioned issues.
  
  We would like to thank you again for taking the time to provide such an in depth and constructive review for which we have taken your requests on board and will attempt to incorporate them. The manuscript will of course be subjected to a careful spelling, grammar and flow check and will be adjusted as needed.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-1145-AC3

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (20 Feb 2023) by Rachid Omira

AR by Clare Lewis on behalf of the Authors (27 Mar 2023) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Apr 2023) by Rachid Omira

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (07 May 2023)

ED: Publish as is (12 Jun 2023) by Rachid Omira

AR by Clare Lewis on behalf of the Authors (14 Jun 2023) Author's response Manuscript

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17 Jul 2023

Meteotsunami in the United Kingdom: the hidden hazard

Clare Lewis, Tim Smyth, David Williams, Jess Neumann, and Hannah Cloke

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 2531–2546, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2531-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-2531-2023, 2023

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Meteotsunami are globally occurring water waves initiated by sudden air pressure changes linked to cyclones, squalls, thunderstorms and atmospheric gravity waves. Previous research has suggested that in the UK, meteotsunami are rare waves generated by summer precipitating convective storms. However, this paper presents an up dated catalogue showing a larger percentage of winter events linked to small precipitating convective weather systems behind the cold fronts of mid latitude depressions.


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Meteotsunami in the United Kingdom: The hidden hazard

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