Modelling sea level rise impacts on storm surges along US coasts
TLDR
In this paper, the influence of sea level rise on expected storm surge-driven water levels and their frequencies along the contiguous United States is investigated, and substantial changes in the frequency of what are now considered extreme water levels may occur even at locations with relatively slow local sea-level rise, when the difference in height between presently common and rare water levels is small.Abstract:
Sound policies for protecting coastal communities and assets require good information about vulnerability to flooding. Here, we investigate the influence of sea level rise on expected storm surge-driven water levels and their frequencies along the contiguous United States. We use model output for global temperature changes, a semi-empirical model of global sea level rise, and long-term records from 55 nationally distributed tidal gauges to develop sea level rise projections at each gauge location. We employ more detailed records over the period 1979‐2008 from the same gauges to elicit historic patterns of extreme high water events, and combine these statistics with anticipated relative sea level rise to project changing local extremes through 2050. We find that substantial changes in the frequency of what are now considered extreme water levels may occur even at locations with relatively slow local sea level rise, when the difference in height between presently common and rare water levels is small. We estimate that, by mid-century, some locations may experience high water levels annually that would qualify today as ‘century’ (i.e., having a chance of occurrence of 1% annually) extremes. Today’s century levels become ‘decade’ (having a chance of 10% annually) or more frequent events at about a third of the study gauges, and the majority of locations see substantially higher frequency of previously rare storm-driven water heights in the future. These results add support to the need for policy approaches that consider the non-stationarity of extreme events when evaluating risks of adverse climate impacts.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Tropical cyclones and climate change
Kevin Walsh,John L. McBride,Philip J. Klotzbach,Sethurathinam Balachandran,Suzana J. Camargo,Greg J. Holland,Thomas R. Knutson,James P. Kossin,Tsz-cheung Lee,Adam H. Sobel,Masato Sugi +10 more
TL;DR: In this paper, a theoretical basis for maximum TC intensity appears now to be well established, but a climate theory of TC formation remains elusive Climate models mostly continue to predict future decreases in global TC numbers, projected increases in the intensities of the strongest storms and increased rainfall rates Sea level rise will likely contribute toward increased storm surge risk.
Journal ArticleDOI
Probabilistic 21st and 22nd Century Sea-Level Projections at a Global Network of Tide-Gauge Sites
Robert E. Kopp,Radley M. Horton,Christopher M. Little,Jerry X. Mitrovica,Michael Oppenheimer,D. J. Rasmussen,Benjamin H. Strauss,Claudia Tebaldi,Claudia Tebaldi +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors presented a global set of local sea-level (LSL) projections to inform decisions on timescales ranging from the coming decades through the 22nd century and provided complete probability distributions, informed by a combination of expert community assessment, expert elicitation, and process modeling.
Journal ArticleDOI
New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding.
Scott Kulp,Benjamin H. Strauss +1 more
TL;DR: A new digital elevation model utilizing neural networks is employed and it is shown that the new DEM more than triples the NASA SRTM-based estimates of current global population occupying land below projected sea levels in 2100, with more than 200 million people could be affected based on RCP4.5 and 2 degC of warming.
Journal ArticleDOI
Doubling of coastal flooding frequency within decades due to sea-level rise
Sean Vitousek,Patrick L. Barnard,Charles H. Fletcher,Neil Frazer,Li H. Erikson,Curt D. Storlazzi +5 more
TL;DR: This work uses extreme value theory to combine sea-level projections with wave, tide, and storm surge models to estimate increases in coastal flooding on a continuous global scale and finds that regions with limited water-level variability, i.e., short-tailed flood-level distributions, located mainly in the Tropics, will experience the largest increases in flooding frequency.
Earth's Future Probabilistic 21st and 22nd century sea-level projections at a global network of tide-gauge sites
Robert E. Kopp,M. Horton,Christopher M. Little,Jerry X. Mitrovica,Michael Oppenheimer,Benjamin H. Strauss,Claudia Tebaldi +6 more
TL;DR: This article presented a global set of local sea-level (LSL) projections to inform decisions on timescales ranging from the com- ing decades through the 22nd century, and provided complete probability distributions, informed by a combination of expert community assessment, expert elicitation, and process modeling.
References
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