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Meteotsunami Events and Hydrologic Response in an Isolated Wetland: Beaver Island in Lake Michigan, USA
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  • Wendy Marie Robertson,
  • Daria Kluver,
  • John T Allen,
  • Eric J Anderson
Wendy Marie Robertson
Central Michigan University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Daria Kluver
Central Michigan University
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John T Allen
Central Michigan University
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Eric J Anderson
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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Abstract

Meteotsunamis are both a well-known and poorly understood phenomenon. In particular, the influence of and disturbance by meteotsunami on coastal wetlands is largely unknown. This paper documents a case illustrating how water levels in an isolated wetland, specifically an incipient foredune/swale complex, in northern Lake Michigan responded to a meteotsunami event. We identified potential meteotsunami influence on wetland water levels through slope-break analysis, verified the presence of meteotsunami waves at surrounding lake water level gauge stations with wavelet analysis, analyzed both regional and small-scale meteorological data to establish what source of atmospheric forcing resulted in meteotsunami formation, and used a hydrodynamic model to simulate lake surface response and meteotsunami generation. Here, we present what we hypothesize reflects an idealized response of wetland water levels to meteotsunami influence where an atmospheric bore propagating away from a convective system formed a meteotsunami event that was captured in subsurface water levels beneath the isolated wetland. While this event produced an obvious response, the potential for multiple sources of meteorological forcing and secondary wave refraction highlights several of the challenges with predicting generation of and hazard from meteotsunami events. These issues equally translate in how the current methodology can be applied to isolated wetland systems. The event presented in this study make a strong case for focused research on coastal wetland response to meteotsunamis (and meteotsunami-like events) to address this understudied impact given its implications for coastal processes and resiliency.