The highly complex coastline of the German Bight in the southeastern part of the North Sea, a marginal sea, is particularly vulnerable to storm surge impacts. An essential requirement for preventive coastal risk management is knowledge of the probability of occurrence and the expected elevation of storm surges. Within the framework of the KFKI research project MUSE (Modelling study of storm surges with very low probabilities of exceedance in the German North Sea), observed extreme water levels and modelled extreme events were analysed statistically. The simulations were carried out using a modelling chain of the German Federal Meteorological Service (DWD) and the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH). Modelled and observed water levels were analysed ranked statistically at Siegen University's Research Centre for Water and Environmental Engineering (fwu). The results indicate that extreme weather situations are possible in the North Sea region which may cause storm surges in the German Bight to exceed the maximum surge levels on record (about 4 — 6 m above MSL) by up to 1.4 m. These modelled water levels allow a better estimation of the probability of exceedance of storm surge peak levels.
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