Exploring Data-Related Uncertainties in Analyses of Land Area and Population in the “Low-Elevation Coastal Zone” (LECZ)

Lichter, Michal; Vafeidis, Athanasios T.; Nicholls, Robert J.; Kaiser, G.

doi:10.2112/jcoastres-d-10-00072.1

Cited by 120 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Clearly, the legacies of many more cities and nations, with less wealth to defend themselves, will be threatened globally. A recent study found that all of North America is home to ∼5% of the world's coastal population living less than 10 m above sea level (45); accordingly, we address here only a small fraction of the overall challenge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level

Strauss

Kulp

Levermann

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Anthropogenic carbon emissions lock in long-term sea-level rise that greatly exceeds projections for this century, posing profound challenges for coastal development and cultural legacies. Analysis based on previously published relationships linking emissions to warming and warming to rise indicates that unabated carbon emissions up to the year 2100 would commit an eventual global sea-level rise of 4.3-9.9 m. Based on detailed topographic and population data, local high tide lines, and regional long-term sea-level commitment for different carbon emissions and ice sheet stability scenarios, we compute the current population living on endangered land at municipal, state, and national levels within the United States. For unabated climate change, we find that land that is home to more than 20 million people is implicated and is widely distributed among different states and coasts. The total area includes 1,185-1,825 municipalities where land that is home to more than half of the current population would be affected, among them at least 21 cities exceeding 100,000 residents. Under aggressive carbon cuts, more than half of these municipalities would avoid this commitment if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet remains stable. Similarly, more than half of the US population-weighted area under threat could be spared. We provide lists of implicated cities and state populations for different emissions scenarios and with and without a certain collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Although past anthropogenic emissions already have caused sea-level commitment that will force coastal cities to adapt, future emissions will determine which areas we can continue to occupy or may have to abandon.climate change | climate impacts | sea-level rise M ost studies on the projected impacts of anthropogenic climate change have focused on the 21st century (1). However, substantial research indicates that contemporary carbon emissions, even if stopped abruptly, will sustain or nearly sustain near-term temperature increases for millennia because of the long residence time of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and inertia in the climate system, e.g., the slow exchange of heat between ocean and atmosphere (2-5). Earth system and carboncycle feedbacks such as the release of carbon from thawing permafrost or vegetation changes affecting terrestrial carbon storage or albedo may further extend and possibly amplify warming (6).Paleontological records indicate that global mean sea level is highly sensitive to temperature (7) and that ice sheets, the most important contributors to large-magnitude sea-level change, can respond to warming on century time scales (8), while models suggest ice sheets require millennia to approach equilibrium (9). Accordingly, sustained temperature increases from current emissions are expected to translate to long-term sea-level rise (SLR). Through modeling and with support from paleontological data, Levermann et al. (10) found a roughly linear global mean sealevel increase of 2.3 m per 1°C warming within a time-envelope of th...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level

Strauss

Kulp

Levermann

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The data employed in the present study are the best currently available, and the relative accuracy of the elevation dataset is in general much higher than the absolute accuracy (Lichter et al 2010). However, the SRTM represents a surface model, and hence ground elevation may be overestimated in some areas such as forested areas, with the high vegetation canopy, and also in urban areas where the tops of buildings may be recorded.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 91%

Assessing risk of and adaptation to sea-level rise in the European Union: an application of DIVA

Hinkel

Nicholls

Vafeidis

et al. 2010

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

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144

102

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This paper applies the DIVA model to assess the risk of and adaptation to sealevel rise for the European Union in the 21st century under the A2 and B1 scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For each scenario, impacts are estimated without and with adaptation in the form of increasing dike heights and nourishing beaches. Before 2050, the level of impacts is primarily determined by socio-economic development. In 2100 and assuming no adaptation, 780×10 3 people/year are estimated to be affected by coastal flooding under A2 and 200×10 3 people/year under B1. The total monetary damage caused by flooding, salinity intrusion, land erosion and migration is projected to be about US$ 17×10 9 under both scenarios in 2100; damage costs relative to GDP are highest for the Netherlands (0.3% of GDP under A2). Adaptation reduces the number of people flooded by factors of 110 to 288 and total damage costs by factors of 7 to 9. In 2100 adaptation costs are projected to be US$ 3.5×10 9 under A2 and 2.6×10 9 under B1; adaptation costs relative to GDP are highest for Estonia (0.16% under A2) and Ireland (0.05% under A2). These results suggest that adaptation measures to sea-level rise are beneficial and affordable, and will be widely applied throughout the European Union.

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“…Today, about 10 % of the world's population (>600 million people) and about 65 % of the world's cities with populations of greater than 5 million are located at elevations less than 10 m above sea level [1], and ∼150 million people live within 1 m of the high tide level [2]. Over the last four decades, rapid migration towards the coast and development has significantly increased exposure of populations and assets to extreme sea level events, with about 270 million people and US$13 trillion worth of assets being exposed to such events in 2010 [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Clark

Church

Gregory

et al. 2015

Curr Clim Change Rep

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Considerable progress has been made in understanding the present and future regional and global sea level in the 2 years since the publication of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here, we evaluate how the new results affect the AR5's assessment of (i) historical sea level rise, including attribution of that rise and implications for the sea level budget, (ii) projections of the components and of total global mean sea level (GMSL), and (iii) projections of regional variability and emergence of the anthropogenic signal. In each of these cases, new work largely provides additional evidence in support of the AR5 assessment, providing greater confidence in those findings. Recent analyses confirm the twentieth century sea level rise, with some analyses showing a slightly smaller rate before 1990 and some a slightly larger value than reported in the AR5. There is now more evidence of an acceleration in the rate of rise. Ongoing ocean heat uptake and associated thermal expansion have continued since 2000, and are consistent with ocean thermal expansion reported in the AR5. A significant amount of heat is being stored deeper in the water column, with a larger rate of heat uptake since 2000 compared to the previous decades and with the largest storage in the Southern Ocean. The first formal detection studies for ocean thermal expansion and glacier mass loss since the AR5 have confirmed the AR5 finding of a significant anthropogenic contribution to sea level rise over the last 50 years. New projections of glacier loss from two regions suggest smaller contributions to GMSL rise from these regions than in studies assessed by the AR5; additional regional studies are required to further assess whether there are broader implications of these results. Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, primarily as a result of increased surface melting, and from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, primarily as a result of increased ice discharge, has accelerated. The largest estimates of acceleration in mass loss from the two ice sheets for 2003-2013 equal or exceed the acceleration of GMSL rise calculated from the satellite altimeter sea level record over the longer period of 1993-2014. However, when increased mass gain in land water storage and parts of East Antarctica, and decreased mass loss from glaciers in Alaska and some other regions are taken into account, the net acceleration in the ocean mass gain is consistent with the satellite altimeter record. New studies suggest that a marine ice sheet instability (MISI) may have been initiated in parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), but that it will affect only a limited number of ice streams in the twenty-first century. New projections of mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets by 2100, including a contribution from parts of WAIS undergoing unstable retreat, suggest a contribution that falls largely within the likely range (i.e., two thirds probability) of the AR5. These new results increase confidence in the AR5 likel...

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Exploring Data-Related Uncertainties in Analyses of Land Area and Population in the “Low-Elevation Coastal Zone” (LECZ)

Cited by 120 publications

References 27 publications

Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level

Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level

Assessing risk of and adaptation to sea-level rise in the European Union: an application of DIVA

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

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