Abstract
Coastal flood hazards and damage to coastal communities are increasing steeply and nonlinearly due to the compound impact of intensifying tropical cyclones (TCs) and accelerating sea-level rise (SLR). We expand the probabilistic coastal flood hazard analysis framework to facilitate coastal adaptation by simulating the compound impact of predicted intensifying TCs and rising sea levels in the twenty-first century. We compared the characteristics of landfalling TCs in Florida (FL) and southwest Florida (SWFL) for the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries predicted by several climate models and downscaling models. TCs predicted by four climate models, one without downscaling and three with downscaling, were used by a coupled surge-wave model to predict the future flood hazard due to compound effects of TCs and SLR over a large SWFL coastal flood plain. By 2100, the coastal inundation metrics of the 1% annual chance coastal flood could become almost 3–7 folds of their current values, depending on the climate and downscaling models, Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios, Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation phases, TCs, SLR, precipitation, and how TCs and SLR are incorporated. By 2100, the current 1% (100-year) inundation event could become a 3-year event, and the 0.2% (500-year) inundation event could become a 5-year event.
Highlights
This study focus on the sensitivity of future probabilistic flood hazard over a large coastal floodplain in SW FL to several important factors: sea-level rise (SLR), future tropical cyclones (TCs) predicted by various climate and downscaling models, Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) phases, precipitation, and how SLR and TCs are combined in coastal model simulations
TCs in FL and southwest Florida (SWFL) predicted by the above-mentioned climate and downscaling models as well as from historical data. ∆Cp values predicted by various climate and downscaling models for FL (Fig. SI-1a) and SWFL (Fig. SI1b) generally increase from the late twentieth century to the late twenty-first century, except those obtained by CESM and HiRAM-GFDL
According to the FSUGSM-WRF, CAM5.1, and GFDL-KE results, in the late twenty-first century, ∆Cp and Rmax for RCP8.5 are lower than those during RCP4.5, perhaps due to stabilization of the upper atmosphere due to excessive warming. ∆Cp and R max show slight increases during the positive AMO phase. Rmax values for landfalling TCs in FL (Fig. SI-1c) and SWFL (Fig. SI-1d) show wider variation over time, with an increase predicted by GFDL5-KE and GFDL6-KE, decrease predicted by FSUGSM-WRF, and little change by other models. Rmax is unavailable from CESM and HiRAM
Summary
Selection of tropical cyclones for the twenty‐first century.We consider TC datasets predicted by three global climate models (GCMs) (CESM30, HiRAM-SITHR31, and CAM5.132) without downscaling, and six global climate models (CAM5.333, HiRAM34, HADGEM26, GFDL5[GFDL’s GCM for CMIP5, i.e., Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 ]35, and GFDL6 [GFDL’s GCM for CMIP6, i.e., Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6]36, and FSUGSM37 with four very different downscaling models (NASHM38 for CAM5.3, GFDL Hurricane M odel[39] for HiRAM, W RF40 for FSUSGM, and KE [Kerry Emanuel’s m odel]41 for the others), and two historical TC datasets (HURDAT20 and NCEP242 reanalysis). Except for the historical datasets, all datasets are associated with different times (e.g., late twentieth century and early and/or late twenty-first century), AMO phases (positive and negative), and RCP scenarios (4.5 and 8.5). We examine the sensitivity of changes in landfalling TC characteristics in SWFL and FL in the twentyfirst century to climate and downscaling models, AMO phases, and RCP scenarios. We focus on the predicted changes of three dominant landfalling TC characteristics: central pressure deficit (∆Cp), radius of maximum wind (Rmax), and TC translation velocity ( Vf), before selecting TC datasets for coastal flooding analysis. The naming convention of the TC datasets is described in the caption of Fig. SI-1
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