Sponsor
SA Talke was funded by the US Army Corps of Engineers (Award W1927N-14-2-0015) and NSF awards 1455350 and OCE-1155610. Orton was funded under NOAA’s Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program (award NA10OAR4310212). CH Vane was funded by the Land, Soil and Coast Directorate.
Published In
The Holocene
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2017
Subjects
Storm surges, Tides, North Atlantic oscillation -- Environmental aspects, North Atlantic Ocean -- Climate
Abstract
New York City (NYC) is threatened by 21st-century relative sea-level (RSL) rise because it will experience a trend that exceeds the global mean and has high concentrations of low-lying infrastructure and socioeconomic activity. To provide a long-term context for anticipated trends, we reconstructed RSL change during the past ~1500 years using a core of salt-marsh sediment from Pelham Bay in The Bronx. Foraminifera and bulk-sediment δ13C values were used as sea-level indicators. The history of sediment accumulation was established by radiocarbon dating and recognition of pollution and land-use trends of known age in down-core elemental, isotopic, and pollen profiles. The reconstruction was generated within a Bayesian hierarchical model to accommodate multiple proxies and to provide a unified statistical framework for quantifying uncertainty. We show that RSL in NYC rose by ~1.70 m since ~575 CE (including ~0.38 m since 1850 CE). The rate of RSL rise increased markedly at 1812–1913 CE from ~1.0 to ~2.5 mm/yr, which coincides with other reconstructions along the US Atlantic coast. We investigated the possible influence of tidal-range change in Long Island Sound on our reconstruction using a regional tidal model, and we demonstrate that this effect was likely small. However, future tidal-range change could exacerbate the impacts of RSL rise in communities bordering Long Island Sound. The current rate of RSL rise is the fastest that NYC has experienced for >1500 years, and its ongoing acceleration suggests that projections of 21st-century local RSL rise will be realized.
DOI
10.1177/0959683616683263
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/21203
Citation Details
Andrew C Kemp, Troy D Hill, Christopher H Vane, Niamh Cahill, Philip M Orton, Stefan A Talke, Andrew C Parnell, Kelsey Sanborn, amd Ellen K Hartig (2017). Relative sea-level trends in New York City during the past 1500 years. The Holocene 27 (8), pp. 1169 - 1186.
Description
© The Author(s) 2017
This work was authored as part of the Contributor's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law. Originally published in The Holocene, Vol 27, Issue 8, pp. 1169 - 1186 and can be found online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683616683263