Example Critical Phenomena

Abstract

Environmental characteristics are usually described by physical variables in a statistical nature. The statistical description should reveal the extreme conditions as well as the long-and short-term variations. If a reliable simultaneous database exists, the environmental phenomena can be described by joint probabilities. For example, the joint distribution of wave height and direction might be used to characterize the wave field, where wave height is a scalar value and wave direction is an angular value. Such approaches may also be used to calculate the likelihood of waves and water levels occurring together and at the same point in time [Hawkes et al., 2002]. This would be especially important to evaluate the impact of waves on navigation and to assess flood risk along macrotidal coasts that are subject to surges.