Coleman P. Blakely, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Associate · Argonne National Laboratory

Coastal flooding • Tides & storm surge • Climate risk • Numerical modeling

Get in touch Publications

Image: Hurricane Lee, Sept. 12, 2023 — NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin, GOES-16 imagery courtesy of NOAA/NESDIS

About

Coleman Blakely

I am a postdoctoral research associate in the Environmental Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory, where I study coastal flooding risk to critical infrastructure under present and future climate scenarios. My work spans long-term flood risk assessment, hydrodynamic and wave modeling, coupled ocean model development, and large-ensemble tropical cyclone simulations on high-performance computers.

I completed my Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 2023, where my dissertation examined nonlinear interactions between barotropic and baroclinic processes in a global tide and storm surge model. I remain deeply interested in improving the accuracy and efficiency of physics-based coastal flood forecasting systems from regional to global scales.

Research

01

Coastal Flood Risk to Critical Infrastructure

Power plants, hospitals, and transportation networks in coastal areas face growing risk from storm-driven flooding. Without accurate estimates of that risk, the damages from a storm can last far beyond the end of the event. To forecast risk both in the present day and at mid-century, I combine large-ensemble tropical cyclone simulations with physics-based hydrodynamic models to estimate how that risk will evolve over the coming decades.

ADCIRC CMIP6 Synthetic tropical cyclones
02

High-Resolution Coastal Flooding within Global Ocean Models

Global climate models are powerful tools for understanding long-term change, but their coarse resolution misses the fine-scale dynamics that drive coastal flooding. Using novel remapping and numerical techniques, I am developing methods to capture high-resolution (∼100 m) coastal inundation within traditionally coarse (∼10 km) ocean models — enabling seamless simulation of flood risk within global climate projections.

MPAS-O E3SM Variable-resolution meshes
03

Improving Global Tide Simulations

Accurate tides are the foundation of any coastal flood forecast. In my dissertation work I used optimization techniques and coupling to a global ocean circulation model to more faithfully capture tides in a global barotropic tide model. By better representing tides and longer-term sea-level changes driven by temperature and salinity, we can more accurately estimate the combined effects of tides and wind-driven surge during storm events.

ADCIRC Baroclinic coupling Optimization

Research Experience

Nov 2023 – Present

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Argonne National Laboratory — Environmental Science Division, Lemont, IL

  • Long-term flood risk assessment for critical infrastructure under present and future climate scenarios using CMIP6 climate data, hydrodynamic and wave numerical models, and statistical analysis.
  • Developed coupling infrastructure within the DOE ocean model (E3SM/MPAS-O) to better capture coastal inundation, using version control (Git) with rigorous testing workflows.
  • Simulated large ensembles of synthetic tropical cyclones using a finite-element based numerical model on HPCs.
  • Presented research at national and international scientific conferences.
Aug – Nov 2023

Postdoctoral Research Associate

University of Notre Dame — Computational Hydraulics Laboratory, Notre Dame, IN

  • Collaborated with NOAA colleagues to develop a global coastal flooding forecast system, including upgrades to capture the effects of changing mean sea level.
  • Developed new capability for a community finite-element based coastal flooding numerical model (ADCIRC).
  • Mentored graduate students in developing research goals and problem-solving strategies.
Aug 2019 – Aug 2023

Graduate Research Assistant

University of Notre Dame — Computational Hydraulics Laboratory, Notre Dame, IN

  • Aided in creating a high-resolution coastal flood model for the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts for operational flood forecasting.
  • Devised and implemented an error minimization methodology to improve global and local tide predictions within a flood forecasting model.
  • Performed multi-year simulations of global total water levels on HPCs using advanced hydrodynamic numerical models.
  • Collaborated on an open-source toolbox for the creation of finite-element meshes of coastal regions.

Education

Aug 2023

Ph.D. in Civil Engineering

University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Dissertation: "Understanding Nonlinear Interactions between Barotropic and Baroclinic Processes in a Global Tide and Storm Surge Model"
Advisor: Joannes Westerink, Ph.D.

May 2019

B.S. in Civil Engineering, cum laude

University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Publications & Presentations

Journal Articles (Peer Reviewed)

  1. C. P. Blakely, W. J. Pringle, and V. R. Kotamarthi. "Projections of Tropical Cyclone-driven Coastal Flooding Risk to Critical Infrastructure in the Bay of Bengal." npj Natural Hazards (In press). DOI
  2. A. Cerrone, L. Westerink, G. Ling, C. P. Blakely, D. Wirasaet, C. Dawson, and J. Westerink. "Correcting physics-based global tide and storm water level forecasts with the temporal fusion transformer." Ocean Modelling, Feb. 2025, p. 102509. DOI
  3. C. P. Blakely, D. Wirasaet, A. R. Cerrone, W. J. Pringle, E. D. Zaron, S. R. Brus, G. N. Seroka, S. Moghimi, E. P. Meyers, and J. J. Westerink. "Dissipation Scaled Internal Wave Drag in a Global Heterogeneously Coupled Internal/External Mode Total Water Level Model." Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 16.12 (2024), e2024MS004502. DOI
  4. C. P. Blakely, G. Ling, W. J. Pringle, M. T. Contreras, D. Wirasaet, J. J. Westerink, S. Moghimi, G. Seroka, L. Shi, E. Myers, M. Owensby, and C. Massey. "Dissipation and Bathymetric Sensitivities in an Unstructured Mesh Global Tidal Model." Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 127.5 (May 2022), e2021JC018178. DOI

Technical Reports & Pre-Prints

  1. G. Ling, D. Wirasaet, J. Westerink, M. T. Contreras Vargas, M. Choi, W. Pringle, C. P. Blakely, et al. Development and validation of an Alaskan coupled storm surge, tide, wind wave, and sea ice forecasting system. June 2023. DOI
  2. M. T. Contreras, B. Woods, C. P. Blakely, D. Wirasaet, J. J. Westerink, et al. A channel-to-basin scale ADCIRC based hydrodynamic unstructured mesh model for the US East and Gulf of Mexico Coasts. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS CS 41, 2022.

Selected Conference Presentations

  1. C. P. Blakely, S. Brus, V. Mahadevan, and I. Grindeanu. "Simulating ocean mesoscale activity with variable resolution mode splitting: a test case." 18th U.S. National Congress on Computational Mechanics, Chicago, IL, July 2025.
  2. C. P. Blakely, W. Pringle, and V. R. Kotamarthi. "Projections of Tropical Cyclone-driven Coastal Flooding Risk to Critical Infrastructure in the Bay of Bengal." AGU Fall Meeting 2024, Washington, DC, Dec. 2024.
  3. C. P. Blakely and S. Brus. "Accurately Capturing Coastal Water Levels through Variable Resolution Mode Splitting in MPAS-Ocean." 9th European Seminar on Computing, Pilsen, Czech Republic, June 2024.
  4. C. P. Blakely, W. Pringle, D. Wirasaet, and J. J. Westerink. "Accurately Capturing Global Tides in a Loosely-Coupled Ocean Circulation and Global Storm Tide Model." 3rd Int. Workshop on Waves, Storm Surges, and Coastal Hazards, Notre Dame, IN, Oct. 2023.
  5. C. P. Blakely, D. Wirasaet, J. J. Westerink, and W. Pringle. "Efficiently Incorporating Baroclinic Effects in a Global, Depth-Averaged Storm Tide Model." AGU Fall Meeting 2022, Chicago, IL, Dec. 2022.
  6. C. P. Blakely, G. Ling, D. Wirasaet, and J. Westerink. "Coupling Global Ocean Circulation and Barotropic, Global, Tidal and Storm Surge Model." 12th Int. Workshop on Modeling the Ocean, Ann Arbor, MI, June 2022. Outstanding Young Scientist Award
  7. C. P. Blakely, W. Pringle, and J. J. Westerink. "Coupling Global Ocean Circulation and Global Tide and Storm Surge Model." 15th World Congress on Computational Mechanics, Yokohama, Japan, Oct. 2022.
  8. C. P. Blakely, G. Ling, W. J. Pringle, et al. "Dissipation Processes in an Unstructured Mesh Global Tidal Model." 102nd AMS Annual Meeting, Houston, TX, Jan. 2022.

Awards & Honors

2019–2023

Arthur J. Schmitt Presidential Leadership Fellowship

University of Notre Dame

2022

Outstanding Young Scientist Award

International Workshop on Modeling the Ocean

2018

Chi Epsilon Honor Society

University of Notre Dame Student Chapter

Skills

Coding Languages

  • Python
  • Fortran
  • C++
  • MATLAB

Numerical Models

  • ADCIRC
  • MPAS-O
  • E3SM

Tools & Platforms

  • Git / GitHub
  • Bash / Linux HPC
  • Amazon Web Services
  • Vim

Research Areas

  • Coastal flood modeling
  • Tides & storm surge
  • Climate risk assessment
  • Finite-element methods

Contact

I'm always happy to discuss research, collaborations, or opportunities.

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