Relative sea-level rise during the Main Postglacial Transgression in NE Scotland, U.K.

Author(s):  
D. E. Smith ◽  
C. R. Firth ◽  
C. L. Brooks ◽  
M. Robinson ◽  
P. E. F. Collins

AbstractFlandrian (Holocene) relative sea level changes in the lower Ythan valley, NE Scotland, U.K., are inferred from detailed stratigraphical evidence including microfossil analysis and radiocarbon assay. The principal event recorded is the Main Postglacial Transgression, which was under way in the area by c. 8300 and had culminated before c. 4000 radiocarbon years BP. It is concluded that the rise in relative sea levels during the transgression in the area exceeded 12 m; that the mean rate of rise there was 8·05 mm a−1 between c. 8300 and c. 7100 radiocarbon years BP, or 7·09 mm a−1 based upon calibrated dates for the same period, before declining markedly to 1·75 mm a−1 (radiocarbon) or 1·86 mm a−1 (calibrated) to the culmination of the event. By comparison with other sites, the culmination appears to have been time-transgressive in eastern Scotland. Deposits of the Second Storegga Slide tsunami, which occurred during the Main Postglacial Transgression, are present in the Ythan valley, where the sediment run-up of the event at the sites studied is estimated to have been within the range 2·99–5·19 m.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Ferrarin ◽  
Piero Lionello ◽  
Mirko Orlic ◽  
Fabio Raicich ◽  
Gianfausto Salvadori

<p><span><span>Extreme sea levels at the coast result from the combination of astronomical tides with atmospherically forced fluctuations at multiple time scales. Seiches, river floods, waves, inter-annual and inter-decad</span></span><span><span>al dynamics and relative sea-level rise can also contribute to the total sea level. While tides are usually well described and predicted, the effect of the different atmospheric contributions to the sea level and their trends are still not well understood. Meso-scale atmospheric disturbances, synoptic-scale phenomena and planetary atmospheric waves (PAW) act at different temporal and spatial scales and thus generate sea-level disturbances at different frequencies. In this study, we analyze the 1872-2019 sea-level time series in Venice (northern Adriatic Sea, Italy) to investigate the relative role of the different driving factors in the extreme sea levels distribution. The adopted approach consists in 1) isolating the different contributions to the sea level by applying least-squares fitting and Fourier decomposition; 2) performing a multivariate statistical analysis which enables the dependencies among driving factors and their joint probability of occurrence to be described; 3) analyzing temporal changes in extreme sea levels and extrapolating possible future tendencies. The results highlight the fact that the most extreme sea levels are mainly dominated by the non-tidal residual, while the tide plays a secondary role. The non-tidal residual of the extreme sea levels is attributed mostly to PAW surge and storm surge, with the latter component becoming dominant for the most extreme events. The results of temporal evolution analysis confirm previous studies according to which the relative sea-level rise is the major driver of the increase in the frequency of floods in Venice over the last century. However, also long term variability in the storm activity impacted the frequency and intensity of extreme sea levels and have contributed to an increase of floods in Venice during the fall and winter months of the last three decades.</span></span></p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 2643-2678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Zanchettin ◽  
Sara Bruni ◽  
Fabio Raicich ◽  
Piero Lionello ◽  
Fanny Adloff ◽  
...  

Abstract. The city of Venice and the surrounding lagoonal ecosystem are highly vulnerable to variations in relative sea level. In the past ∼150 years, this was characterized by an average rate of relative sea-level rise of about 2.5 mm/year resulting from the combined contributions of vertical land movement and sea-level rise. This literature review reassesses and synthesizes the progress achieved in quantification, understanding and prediction of the individual contributions to local relative sea level, with a focus on the most recent studies. Subsidence contributed to about half of the historical relative sea-level rise in Venice. The current best estimate of the average rate of sea-level rise during the observational period from 1872 to 2019 based on tide-gauge data after removal of subsidence effects is 1.23 ± 0.13 mm/year. A higher – but more uncertain – rate of sea-level rise is observed for more recent years. Between 1993 and 2019, an average change of about +2.76 ± 1.75 mm/year is estimated from tide-gauge data after removal of subsidence. Unfortunately, satellite altimetry does not provide reliable sea-level data within the Venice Lagoon. Local sea-level changes in Venice closely depend on sea-level variations in the Adriatic Sea, which in turn are linked to sea-level variations in the Mediterranean Sea. Water mass exchange through the Strait of Gibraltar and its drivers currently constitute a source of substantial uncertainty for estimating future deviations of the Mediterranean mean sea-level trend from the global-mean value. Regional atmospheric and oceanic processes will likely contribute significant interannual and interdecadal future variability in Venetian sea level with a magnitude comparable to that observed in the past. On the basis of regional projections of sea-level rise and an understanding of the local and regional processes affecting relative sea-level trends in Venice, the likely range of atmospherically corrected relative sea-level rise in Venice by 2100 ranges between 32 and 62 cm for the RCP2.6 scenario and between 58 and 110 cm for the RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. A plausible but unlikely high-end scenario linked to strong ice-sheet melting yields about 180 cm of relative sea-level rise in Venice by 2100. Projections of human-induced vertical land motions are currently not available, but historical evidence demonstrates that they have the potential to produce a significant contribution to the relative sea-level rise in Venice, exacerbating the hazard posed by climatically induced sea-level changes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lincke ◽  
Robert J. Nicholls ◽  
Jochen Hinkel ◽  
Sally Brown ◽  
Athanasios T. Vafeidis ◽  
...  

<p>Climate-induced sea-level rise and vertical land movements, including natural and human-induced subsidence in sedimentary coastal lowlands, combine to change relative sea levels around the world's coast. Global-average coastal relative sea-level rise was 2.5 mm/yr over the last two decades. However, as coastal inhabitants are preferentially located in subsiding locations, they experience an average relative sea-level rise up to four times faster at 7.8 to 9.9 mm/yr. This first global quantification of relative sea-level rise shows that the resulting impacts, and adaptation needs are much higher than reported global sea-level rise measurements would suggest. Hence, coastal subsidence is an important global issue that needs more assessment and action. In particular, human-induced subsidence in and surrounding coastal cities can be rapidly reduced with appropriate policy measures for groundwater utilization and drainage. This offers substantial and rapid benefits in terms of reducing growth of coastal flood exposure due to relative sea-level rise.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Ciarletta ◽  
Jennifer L. Miselis ◽  
Justin L. Shawler ◽  
Christopher J. Hein

Abstract. Barrier coasts, including barrier islands, beach-ridge plains, and associated landforms, can assume a broad spectrum of morphologies over decadal scales that reflect conditions of sediment availability, accommodation, and relative sea-level rise. However, the quantitative thresholds of these controls on barrier-system behavior remain largely unexplored, even as modern sea-level rise and anthropogenic modification of sediment availability increasingly reshape the world’s sandy coastlines. In this study, we conceptualize barrier coasts as sediment partitioning frameworks, distributing sand delivered from the shoreface to the subaqueous and subaerial components of the coastal system. Using an idealized morphodynamic model, we explore thresholds of behavioral/morphologic change over decadal to centennial timescales, simulating barrier evolution within quasi-stratigraphic morphological cross-sections. Our results indicate a wide diversity of barrier behaviors can be explained by the balance of fluxes delivered to the beach versus the dune/backbarrier, including previously understudied forms of transgression that allow the subaerial system to continue accumulating sediment during landward migration. Most importantly, our results show that barrier state transitions between progradation, cross-shore amalgamation, aggradation, and transgression are controlled largely through balances within a narrow range of relative sea-level rise and sediment flux. This suggests that, in the face of rising sea levels, subtle changes in sediment fluxes could result in significant changes in barrier morphology. We also demonstrate that modeled barriers with reduced vertical sediment accommodation are highly sensitive to the magnitude and direction of shoreface fluxes. Therefore, natural barriers with limited sediment accommodation could allow for exploration of the future effects of sea-level rise and changing flux magnitudes over a period of years as opposed to the decades required for similar responses in sediment-rich barrier systems. Finally, because our model creates stratigraphy generated under different input parameters, we propose it could be used in combination with stratigraphic data to hindcast the sensitivity of existing barriers and infer changes in pre-historic morphology, which we anticipate will provide a baseline to assess the reliability of forward modeling predictions.


Author(s):  
Luigi Tosi ◽  
Cristina Da Lio ◽  
Sandra Donnici ◽  
Tazio Strozzi ◽  
Pietro Teatini

Abstract. Relative sea-level rise (RSLR), i.e. sea-level rise due to climate changes combined with land subsidence, is one of the processes that is most severely threatening the coastal systems around the world. The Venice coastland forms the major low-lying area in Italy and encompasses a variety of environments, such as farmlands, estuaries, deltas, lagoons and urbanized areas. Valuable ecosystems, historical heritages and economic activities are located in this area. Since most of the territory lies at a ground elevation below or slightly above the mean sea-level, also a few mm yr−1 of land subsidence can seriously impacts on the Venice coastal system. In this study, we present an analysis of the vulnerability to RSLR considering an uneven land subsidence distribution, with an application on the Venice coastland. The analysis is delineated at the regional scale by an index-based model and a proper coupling of various thematic layers, such as high spatial resolution land subsidence data retrieved by satellite SAR interferometry, ongoing and projected sea-level rise trends, and morpho-physiographic setting of the coastland.


2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afrânio Rubens de Mesquita ◽  
Alberto Dos Santos Franco ◽  
Joseph Harari ◽  
Carlos Augusto De Sampaio França

ABSTRACT. This is Part II of a contribution on Brazilian sea levels – Part I dealt with the seasonal variability. It examines the sea level changes along the Brazilian coast from series with less than 40 years of measurement, against the background of changes in series of all continents and islands around the world, considering data distributed by the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL). The method of analysis follows the display of the data in a: 1) first plot of relative sea level trends (C), against the length of the series (L) expressed in years and a: 2) second plot showing the relative sea level regression coefficients (C), versus the corresponding correlation values (m). The first plot of all PSMSL data exhibited a cusped like shape of the distribution of (C), having maxima values about 10-20 cm/cty for the longest series (120-137 years), indicating the overall positive value of the global relative sea level trend. Similar first plot, a regional plot of African and South American data adjusted to the same global relative mean level, showed that the Brazilian trends (C), are mostly concentrated in the positive side of the cusped: (ports of Bel´em, Fortaleza. Recife, Canavieiras, Salvador, Ilha Fiscal, Rio de Janeiro, Ubatuba, Cananeia, and Imbituba) which have a mean value within 30 to 40 cm/cty. The second plot, with all set of PSMSL data, was necessary in order to display trend values of non simultaneous series of different continental borders and lengths in the same bin. The plot gave two different linear inclinations for trend values within ± 0.3 cm/y, in the positive and negative sides of the figure. The global ratio obtained for the trends was R = − 1.2, suggesting also, from the linearity of the plot, that the trends and correlation values are statistically dependent variables. The graph produced a different value for global balance of the value C obtained in the first plot. Similar regional second plot of the African Atlantic and South American borders, which include the Brazilian data, also gave rise to two new regression lines with trend C*1 < 0 and C*2 > 0, with a ratio R = − 2.2, involving bins of m and C values that are also null in the vicinity of zero. This regionally plot confirmed the result of the second plot with PSMSL series that they (C and m), globally, should be dependent statistical variables. These findings, however, do not change the fact that the regional series with trends 0.2 cm/year have correlation values m < 0.3, whatever their lengths, and that the mean value of the relative sea level, along the Brazilian coast, is increasing with an estimated rate of 30 to 40 cm/cty. Further work is under way, aiming at solving the above apparently contradictory results.Keywords: sea level, Brazilian coast, PSMSL series, global relative sea level, imbalance of relative sea level. RESUMO. Esta é a segunda parte de uma contribuição sobre os níveis do mar na costa brasileira – a parte I tratou da variação sazonal – ela examina as mudanças do nível do mar ao longo da costa brasileira a partir de séries com comprimentos menores do que 40 anos contra as variações das séries de todas as ilhas e continentes do globo, levando em conta as séries distribuídas pelo Permanent Service for the Mean Sea Level (PSMSL). A descrição é feita através da exposição dos dados em 1) um gráfico das tendências (C) contra o comprimento das séries (L) em dados anuais e um 2) segundo gráfico mostrando as tendências dos níveis relativos (C) contra os valores dos valores das correlações (m) entre as séries e os dados da sua reta de regressão. O primeiro gráfico com as séries do PSMSL mostrou uma forma de cúspide como distribuição de (C) com valores máximos de cerca de 10-20 cm/século para as séries mais compridas (120-137 anos). Figura semelhante com dados da América do Sul e da África ajustada para essa média, mostra o mesmo padrão (portos de Belém, Fortaleza, Canavieiras, Salvador, Ilha Fiscal, Rio de Janeiro, Ubatuba, Cananeia e Imbituba). O segundo gráfico foi necessário para a análise de séries com comprimentos diversos e não simultâneas como as séries do PSMSL, produziu duas novas retas com inclinações C*1 < 0 e C* > 0 construídas a partir dos valores das tendências C das séries PSMSL, com inclinações dentro da faixa de 0,2 cm/ano na parte positiva e negativa da figura, sugerindo uma não equivalência entre essas inclinações, em favor de valor global negativo de C* para o Nível Relativo do Mar. Figura semelhante produzida com as s´eries Africanas e Sul Americanas, que incluíram as séries brasileiras, mostrou característica similar, além de indicar que séries com tendências ± 0,2 cm/ano têm valores de correlação m < 0,3 qualquer que seja o comprimento da série. Os resultados interessantes, mas contraditórios, que incluem a dependência linear global entre correlação e tendências das séries fornecidas pelo PSMSL, devem ser analisados em continuação aos presentes estudos, que indicam que o nível relativo do mar na costa brasileira está aumentando à razão de 30 a 40 cm/século.Palavras-chave: nível do mar, costa brasileira, séries do PSMSL, nível relativo do mar global, balanço do nível relativo do mar.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-203
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Ciarletta ◽  
Jennifer L. Miselis ◽  
Justin L. Shawler ◽  
Christopher J. Hein

Abstract. Barrier coasts, including barrier islands, beach-ridge plains, and associated landforms, can assume a broad spectrum of morphologies over multi-decadal scales that reflect conditions of sediment availability, accommodation, and relative sea-level rise. However, the quantitative thresholds of these controls on barrier-system behavior remain largely unexplored, even as modern sea-level rise and anthropogenic modification of sediment availability increasingly reshape the world's sandy coastlines. In this study, we conceptualize barrier coasts as sediment-partitioning frameworks, distributing sand delivered from the shoreface to the subaqueous and subaerial components of the coastal system. Using an idealized morphodynamic model, we explore thresholds of behavioral and morphologic change over decadal to centennial timescales, simulating barrier evolution within quasi-stratigraphic morphological cross sections. Our results indicate a wide diversity of barrier behaviors can be explained by the balance of fluxes delivered to the beach vs. the dune or backbarrier, including previously understudied forms of transgression that allow the subaerial system to continue accumulating sediment during landward migration. Most importantly, our results show that barrier state transitions between progradation, cross-shore amalgamation, aggradation, and transgression are controlled largely through balances within a narrow range of relative sea-level rise and sediment flux. This suggests that, in the face of rising sea levels, subtle changes in sediment fluxes could result in significant changes in barrier morphology. We also demonstrate that modeled barriers with reduced vertical sediment accommodation are highly sensitive to the magnitude and direction of shoreface fluxes. Therefore, natural barriers with limited sediment accommodation could allow for exploration of the future effects of sea-level rise and changing flux magnitudes over a period of years as opposed to the decades required for similar responses in sediment-rich barrier systems. Finally, because our model creates stratigraphy generated under different input parameters, we propose that it could be used in combination with stratigraphic data to hindcast the sensitivity of existing barriers and infer changes in prehistoric morphology, which we anticipate will provide a baseline to assess the reliability of forward modeling predictions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 644 ◽  
pp. 33-45
Author(s):  
JM Hill ◽  
PS Petraitis ◽  
KL Heck

Salt marshes face chronic anthropogenic impacts such as relative sea level rise and eutrophication, as well as acute disturbances from tropical storms that can affect the productivity of these important communities. However, it is not well understood how marshes already subjected to eutrophication and sea level rise will respond to added effects of episodic storms such as hurricanes. We examined the interactive effects of nutrient addition, sea level rise, and a hurricane on the growth, biomass accumulation, and resilience of the saltmarsh cordgrass Spartina alterniflora in the Gulf of Mexico. In a microtidal marsh, we manipulated nutrient levels and submergence using marsh organs in which cordgrasses were planted at differing intertidal elevations and measured the impacts of Hurricane Isaac, which occurred during the experiment. Prior to the hurricane, grasses at intermediate and high elevations increased in abundance. After the hurricane, all treatments lost approximately 50% of their shoots, demonstrating that added nutrients and elevation did not provide resistance to hurricane disturbance. At the end of the experiment, only the highest elevations had been resilient to the hurricane, with increased above- and belowground growth. Added nutrients provided a modest increase in above- and belowground growth, but only at the highest elevations, suggesting that only elevation will enhance resilience to hurricane disturbance. These results empirically demonstrate that S. alterniflora in microtidal locations already subjected to submergence stress is less able to recover from storm disturbance and suggests we may be underestimating the loss of northern Gulf Coast marshes due to relative sea level rise.


Terra Nova ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.C. Varekamp ◽  
E. Thomas ◽  
O. Plassche

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