Antunes, C. Assessment of Sea Level Rise at West Coast of Portugal Mainland and Its Projection for the 21st Century. J. Mar. Sci. Eng.2019, 7, 61.
Antunes, C. Assessment of Sea Level Rise at West Coast of Portugal Mainland and Its Projection for the 21st Century. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2019, 7, 61.
Antunes, C. Assessment of Sea Level Rise at West Coast of Portugal Mainland and Its Projection for the 21st Century. J. Mar. Sci. Eng.2019, 7, 61.
Antunes, C. Assessment of Sea Level Rise at West Coast of Portugal Mainland and Its Projection for the 21st Century. J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2019, 7, 61.
Abstract
Data collected at the Cascais tide gauge, located on the west coast of Portugal Mainland, have been analyzed and sea level rise rates have been updated. Based on a bootstrapping linear regression model and on polynomial adjustments, time series are used to calculate different empirical projections for the 21st century sea level rise, by estimating the initial velocity and its corresponding acceleration. The results are consistent to an accelerated sea level rise, showing evidence of a faster rise than previous century estimates. Based on different numerical methods of second order polynomial fitting, it is possible to build a set of projection models of relative sea level rise. Appling the same methods to regional sea level anomaly from satellite altimetry, additional projections are also built with good consistency. Both data sets, tide gauge and satellite altimetry data, enabled the development of an ensemble of projection models. The relative sea level rise projections are crucial for national coastal planning and management since extreme sea level scenarios can potentially cause erosion and flooding. Based on absolute vertical velocities obtained by integrating global sea level models, neo-tectonic studies and permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) station time series, it is possible to transform relative into absolute sea level rise scenarios, and vice-versa, allowing the generation of absolute sea level rise projection curves and its comparison with already established global projections. The sea level rise observed at the Cascais tide gauge has always shown a significant correlation with global sea level rise observations, evidencing relatively low rates of composed vertical land velocity from tectonic and post-glacial isostatic adjustment, and residual synoptic regional dynamic effects rather than a trend. An ensemble of sea level projection models for the 21st century is proposed with its corresponding probability density function, both for relative and absolute sea level rise for the west coast of Portugal Mainland.
Keywords
Cascais tide gauge; sea level rise; sea level acceleration; sea level projection; SLR probability density function; uplift derived from SLR
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Geography
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
