Scientific Study at the University of Basrah Examines the Impact of Atmospheric Factors on Sea Level Fluctuations
A scientific study conducted by Dr. Aba Thar Jabbar Bashar, a faculty member at the Marine Science Center, University of Basrah, investigated the impact of atmospheric factors on sea level fluctuations in the northwestern Arabian Gulf.
The study, published in Ocean Modelling, an international journal by Elsevier indexed in Scopus (Q1) with an impact factor of 2.9, explored how integrating atmospheric variables improves the accuracy of Sea Level Variation (SLV) prediction models in the northwestern Arabian Gulf. The research employed advanced statistical and deep learning models, including SARIMAX, LSTM, and CNN&LSTM, to enhance forecasting precision.
The results revealed that atmospheric factors significantly improve the accuracy of sea level fluctuation predictions, with the highest influence observed during the summer season. July and August recorded the highest total monthly values, consistent with findings from previous studies. The study also found that air temperature (AT) was the most influential variable, contributing 28.35% in August, underscoring the persistent impact of climate change on rising sea levels.
Furthermore, the models showed that atmospheric pressure (AP) had a stable but limited negative effect, while wind speed (WS), wind direction (WD), and gust speed (GS) exhibited variable influences depending on the month. Deep learning models indicated that some of these factors may inversely affect sea level fluctuations.
The study recommended the integration of atmospheric variables into sea level prediction models through a combination of statistical methods and intelligent deep learning techniques to enhance the accuracy of coastal flood forecasts and support disaster management and flood risk mitigation strategies in coastal regions.
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