Projection of sea-level change in the vicinity of Hong Kong in the 21st century

Autor: Y. H. He, H. Y. Mok, Edwin S. T. Lai
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: International Journal of Climatology. 36:3237-3244
ISSN: 0899-8418
DOI: 10.1002/joc.4551
Popis: Situated along the coast of southern China and facing the South China Sea, Hong Kong has been experiencing a significant rise in sea level by about 2.9 mm year−1 since the 1950s. For a densely populated coastal city prone to storm surge impacts during the passages of tropical cyclones, accentuated by the threat of sea-level rise as a result of global warming and local vertical land displacement, projection of the sea-level change for Hong Kong is essential for local risk assessment and long-term planning of adaptation measures. This study presented the projection of sea-level change in Hong Kong and its adjacent waters under the Representative Concentration Pathway 4.5 and 8.5 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) scenarios in the 21st century based on climate projections by models in phase 5 of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, in combination with contributions from land ice and land water storage determined from published literatures, and local vertical land displacement as estimated by using continuous high-precision GPS observations in Hong Kong. The results show that the sea level in Hong Kong and its adjacent waters is projected to rise by 0.67 (0.50–0.84) m and 0.84 (0.63–1.07) m in 2081–2100 relative to 1986–2005 under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively, about 0.2 m higher than the global mean values projected by the Fifth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The higher projected sea-level rise in Hong Kong and its adjacent waters as compared with the global mean values is primarily due to local vertical land displacement which contributes around 28% and 23% of the projected sea-level rise in 2081–2100 relative to 1986–2005 in the two respective RCP scenarios.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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