HR: 0800h
AN: G51A-0139    [Abstracts]
TI: Impacts of Combined Sea Level Rise and Coastal Subsidence, New York City Metropolitan Area
AU: Liu, J
EM: jliu@eas.gatech.edu
AU: * Horton, R
EM: radley.m.horton
AF: Columbia University/NASA-GISS, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 11215, United States
AB: Future sea level rise due to global warming will lead to more frequent flooding of low-lying coastal areas and wetlands, increased land submergence, and enhanced beach erosion. Coastal subsidence exacerbates these overall impacts. In the New York City metropolitan area, rates of relative sea level rise for the last 100 years range between 2-4 mm/yr, to which ongoing glacial isostatic adjustments (GIA) contribute on average ~40 %. While this percentage diminishes as climate-induced sea level trends increase, it remains non-negligible. We apply Ramstorf's (2007, Science, 315, 368-370) semi-empirical methodology that links global temperature change to sea level rise for IPCC SRES A1B, A2, and B1 greenhouse gas emission scenarios, using World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) dataset for 11 global climate models. Sea level projections are corrected for GIA, using Peltier's ICE-5G 1° x 1° gridded dataset. Projected global sea level rise by the end of the 21st century ranges between 48 and 94 cm above the 2001-2005 base period. Projections of regional sea level rise encompassing the New York metropolitan region will be presented. An importance consequence is the increase in flood hazards even with small increments of sea level and constant storm climatology. For example, in New York City, a flood event with a current recurrence interval of 1 in 10 years, is likely to occur once a year or less by the 2080s.
DE: 0399 General or miscellaneous
SC: Geodesy [G]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting