New York City Panel on Climate Change 2019 Report Chapter 4: Coastal Flooding

Orton, Philip M.; Lin, Ning; Gornitz, Vivien; Colle, Brian A.; Booth, James F.; Feng, Kairui; Buchanan, Maya K.; Oppenheimer, Michael; Patrick, Lesley

doi:10.1111/nyas.14011

Cited by 32 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Our results show that urbanization extends below the estuary water surface, with deepening of channels for shipping and excavation of borrow pits for landfill. The primary insight from this study that estuary urbanization amplifies storm tides likely applies to many urban subembayments worldwide since basin engineering and wetland landfill for port development are globally common and ongoing processes (e.g., Murray et al, 2014;Paalvast and van der Velde, 2014;Schoukens, 2017). Systems with likely impacts include those with substantial changes to inlets, mean estuary depths, and wetland landfill or reclamation (Talke and Jay, 2020) and could potentially be identified by observed long-term changes to tides.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…In recent centuries, human activities have greatly modified the geomorphology and ecology of coastal regions, yet studies of historical and possible future changes in coastal flood extremes typically ignore the influence of geomorphic change (e.g., Lin et al, 2016;Orton et al, 2019). Jamaica Bay exemplifies an extreme case of "estuary urbanization" marked by landfill, diking, channel deepening, and wetland loss (e.g., .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Storm tide amplification and habitat changes due to urbanization of a lagoonal estuary

Orton

Sanderson

Talke

et al. 2020

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In recent centuries, human activities have greatly modified the geomorphology of coastal regions. However, studies of historical and possible future changes in coastal flood extremes typically ignore the influence of geomorphic change. Here, we quantify the influence of 20th-century man-made changes to Jamaica Bay, New York City, on present-day storm tides. We develop and validate a hydrodynamic model for the 1870s based on detailed maps of bathymetry, seabed characteristics, topography, and tide observations for use alongside a present-day model. Predominantly through dredging, landfill, and inlet stabilization, the average water depth of the bay increased from 1.7 to 4.5 m, tidal surface area decreased from 92 to 72 km2, and the inlet minimum cross-sectional area expanded from 4800 to 8900 m2. Total (freshwater plus salt) marsh habitat area has declined from 61 to 15 km2 and intertidal unvegetated habitat area from 17 to 4.6 km2. A probabilistic flood hazard assessment with simulations of 144 storm events reveals that the landscape changes caused an increase of 0.28 m (12 %) in the 100-year storm tide, even larger than the influence of global sea level rise of about 0.23 m since the 1870s. Specific anthropogenic changes to estuary depth and area as well as inlet depth and width are shown through targeted modeling and dynamics-based considerations to be the most important drivers of increasing storm tides.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Storm tide amplification and habitat changes due to urbanization of a lagoonal estuary

Orton

Sanderson

Talke

et al. 2020

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Even though the ETC winds are typically weaker than a hurricane, the ETC wind field is larger in spatial extent and can enhance the coastal flooding over several high tide cycles [158]. As a result, for New York City (NYC), 15 of the top 22 known historical storm tide events were caused by ETCs [159]. A multilinear regression method using derived surface wind stress and sea-level pressure from several CMIP5 models under the RCP8.5 scenario found little change in storm surges for the NYC area from present day to 2054-2079 [160].…”

Section: Coastal Flooding and Wave Damagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The~0.5 m of regional sea-level rise in NYC between 1800 and 2000 implies that Sandy's return period decreased by a factor of three [162]. In the future for NYC, a 1-in-100-year flood for NYC is expected to occur every 8-59 years (90th and 10th percentiles) by the 2080s [159].…”

Section: Coastal Flooding and Wave Damagementioning

confidence: 99%

The Future of Midlatitude Cyclones

Catto

Ackerley

Booth

et al. 2019

Curr Clim Change Rep

117

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Purpose of Review This review brings together recent research on the structure, characteristics, dynamics, and impacts of extratropical cyclones in the future. It draws on research using idealized models and complex climate simulations, to evaluate what is known and unknown about these future changes. Recent Findings There are interacting processes that contribute to the uncertainties in future extratropical cyclone changes, e.g., changes in the horizontal and vertical structure of the atmosphere and increasing moisture content due to rising temperatures. Summary While precipitation intensity will most likely increase, along with associated increased latent heating, it is unclear to what extent and for which particular climate conditions this will feedback to increase the intensity of the cyclones. Future research could focus on bridging the gap between idealized models and complex climate models, as well as better understanding of the regional impacts of future changes in extratropical cyclones. Keywords Extratropical cyclones. Climate change. Windstorms. Idealized model. CMIP models This article is part of the Topical Collection on Mid-latitude Processes and Climate Change

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“…of property lies within the 100‐year flood plain (Figures b and c; NYC Comptroller, ). The AAL due to flooding in Manhattan is expected to increase with SLR (Gornitz et al, ; Orton et al, ). Using our flood damage model, we estimate that the current AAL could increase by more than a factor of 10 by 2070, from $0.1 billion/year to

\sim

$1.6 billion/year (Figure c).…”

Section: Illustration Of Damage Allowance Framework: Manhattan Nycmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Flood Damage Allowance Framework for Coastal Protection With Deep Uncertainty in Sea Level Rise

et al. 2020

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Deep uncertainty describes situations when there is either ignorance or disagreement over (1) models used to describe key system processes and (2) probability distributions used to characterize the uncertainty of key variables and parameters. Future projections of Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) mass loss remain characterized by deep uncertainty. This complicates decisions on long‐lived coastal protection projects when determining what margin of safety to implement. If the chosen margin of safety does not properly account for uncertainties in sea level rise, the effectiveness of flood protection could decrease over time, potentially putting lives and properties at a greater risk. To address this issue, we develop a flood damage allowance framework for calculating the height of a flood protection strategy needed to ensure that a given level of financial risk is maintained. The damage allowance framework considers decision maker preferences such as planning horizons, protection strategies, and subjective views of AIS stability. We use Manhattan—with the population and built environment fixed in time—to illustrate how our framework could be used to calculate a range of damage allowances based on multiple plausible scenarios of AIS melt. Under high greenhouse gas emissions, we find that results are sensitive to the selection of the upper limit of AIS contributions to sea level rise. Design metrics that specify financial risk targets, such as expected flood damage, allow for the calculation of avoided flood damages (i.e., benefits) that can be combined with estimates of construction cost and then integrated into existing financial decision‐making approaches (e.g., benefit‐cost analysis).

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New York City Panel on Climate Change 2019 Report Chapter 4: Coastal Flooding

Cited by 32 publications

References 59 publications

Storm tide amplification and habitat changes due to urbanization of a lagoonal estuary

Storm tide amplification and habitat changes due to urbanization of a lagoonal estuary

The Future of Midlatitude Cyclones

A Flood Damage Allowance Framework for Coastal Protection With Deep Uncertainty in Sea Level Rise

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