The Chilean coastal zone (CCZ) is subjected to a complex spectrum of anthropogenic, geophysical, biogeochemical, and climate-driven perturbations. Potentially affected variables including atmospheric sea level pressure (Pa), alongshore wind, sea surface temperature (SST), chlorophyll-a, rainfall, river discharge, relative mean sea level (RMSL), and wave climate are studied using in situ and satellite records, hindcasts, and reanalysis datasets. Linear temporal trends and correlations of anomalies are estimated between 18°S and 55°S along the CCZ. The comparison of some of the variables is achieved by means of a strict homogenization procedure on a monthly basis for 35 years. Our findings show that the poleward drift and strengthening of the Southeast Pacific Subtropical Anticyclone (SPSA) partially explains the increase in Pa and reduction in rainfall and river discharge. The enhancement of alongshore winds, also attributable to changes in the SPSA, increases coastal upwelling, which in turn could reduce SST and increase chlorophyll-a. Despite differential latitudinal responses, increasing wave heights and a southward rotation are evidenced. RMSL does not show significant variation as it is presumably affected by seafloor changes during the seismic cycle. Though some correlations are evidenced, the influence of climate variability at decadal scale (PDO, SAM) may be affecting the detected trends due to the short length of available data. Impacts on coastal communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems are discussed, aiming to highlight that coastal vulnerabilities and risk management should be based on the cumulative impacts of these variables.

We face a new era in the assessment of multiple natural hazards whose statistics are becoming alarmingly non‐stationary due to ubiquitous long‐term changes in climate. One particular case is tsunami hazard affected by climate‐change‐driven sea level rise (SLR). A traditional tsunami hazard assessment approach where SLR is omitted or included as a constant sea‐level offset in a probabilistic calculation may misrepresent the impacts of climate‐change. In this paper, a general method called non‐stationary probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment (nPTHA), is developed to include the long‐term time‐varying changes in mean sea level. The nPTHA is based on a non‐stationary Poisson process model, which takes advantage of the independence of arrivals within non‐overlapping time‐intervals to specify a temporally varying hazard mean recurrence rate, affected by SLR. The nPTHA is applied to the South China Sea (SCS) for tsunamis generated by earthquakes in the Manila Subduction Zone. The method provides unique and comprehensive results for inundation hazard, combining tsunami and SLR at a specific location over a given exposure time. The results show that in the SCS, SLR has a significant impact when its amplitude is comparable to that of tsunamis with moderate probability of exceedance. The SLR and its associated uncertainty produce an impact on nPTHA results comparable to that caused by the uncertainty in the earthquake recurrence model. These findings are site‐specific and must be analyzed for different regions. The proposed methodology, however, is sufficiently general to include other non‐stationary phenomena and can be exploited for other hazards affected by SLR.

The Mw = 8.8 2010 Chile Earthquake is among the largest recorded by instruments to date, ranking as the second strongest in the country's history and one of the ten strongest worldwide. One of its main consequences was a destructive tsunami caused by the deformation of seafloor. The waves struck nearly 600 km of the coast of central Chile and the event caused about one third of the total casualties (181 out of 521), becoming the highest death toll due to this type of phenomena in South America in the last 30 years. In this paper the authors gather and systematize information from reports, papers and post-tsunami surveys carried out along the affected coastline. A qualitative and statistical characterization of the loss in lives, homes, infrastructure and fishing vessels is provided, separating tsunami effects to those attributable solely to the earthquake. Through the classification and integration of various data sources the authors expect to better explain and assess the damage specifically associated with the tsunami.

Coastal storms have increased in recent decades, affecting many species, including the South American sea lion (Otaria byronia). Reports of stranded sea lion pups are becoming common in Chile, presumably due to the increase in the frequency and intensity of coastal storms. To validate this assumption, a 10-year database was built by coupling wave generation and coastal propagation models to correlate pure wave parameters (significant wave height Hs, peak period Tp, normalized wave power Hs²Tp) and wave parameters including the tidal level (maximum surface elevation η, modified wave power η²Tp) with records of stranded pups in Cobquecura, the largest breeding colony in central Chile. The correlation between the number of pups stranded per day and wave parameters in the first half of January and the last half of February is poor, while they are stronger for the second half of January and the first half of February. The higher number of stranded pups coincide with coastal storms with normalized wave power values exceeding a threshold of 100 m²/s. Conversely, below this threshold there is wide dispersion between the number of strandings and wave parameters. Identifying wave parameter thresholds could be used to predict when newborn pups will be most affected by coastal storms, and thus help institutions to develop remediation techniques for animals at risk.