Abstract
The importance of studying the sea-level change (SLC) in Hong Kong (HK) is emphasized by factors related to high population density, intensive urban, and industrial development, particularly along the coast that involves a considerable landreclamation. To address this issue, we investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics of SLC in the HK territories by analyzing tide-gauge (TG) records collected from 1954 to 2019 and satellite-altimetry (SA) data from 1993 to 2019. The application of the ocean-tide and inverted barometer corrections to TG data substantially decreased uncertaintie by achieving a submillimeter accuracy. The SLC rates detected at six TG stations vary significantly even within this relatively small coastline. According to our estimates, the annual rates vary between 0.32 ± 0.51 and 4.19 ± 0.46 mm/yr from 1997 to 2019. These large differences are related to different patterns of ocean currents and the freshwater discharge in the Pearl River Estuary. The empirical orthogonal function analysis confirms the expected increasing rising in SLC with two anomalous periods during 2002-2003 and 2015-2016 that are likely attributed to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). SLCs are positively correlated with the ENSO index and ENSO precedes several months (normally 5 months) the interannual SLC. The analysis of the GPS trends reveals a prevailing subsidence in the HK territories, which aggravates the relative SLC estimates. Between 1997 and 2019, the absolute sea level raised at the annual rate of 3.17 ± 1.56 mm/yr (when using the GPS+TG) and 2.88 ± 0.59 mm/yr (when using SA observations).
Highlights
Since the 20th century, the global sea level has risen by 10-20 cm [1, 2], which is a slow natural disaster caused by global warming [3, 4], melting of polar glaciers [5,6,7,8,9] and thermal expansion of upper sea water [10,11,12]
The results indicate that the relative sea level rates at tide-gauge stations located in East Hong Kong, such as the Waglan Island (WAG) (5.08 mm/yr), Tai Po Kau (TPK) (4.00 mm/yr) and Tai Miu Wan (TMW) (2.89 mm/yr) stations, are generally higher than those situated in West Hong Kong, just like Tsim Bei Tsui (TBT) (3.06 mm/yr) and SPW (0.38 mm/yr)
We have analyzed the sea level changes in Hong Kong using the tide-gauge records at six stations over the period between 1954 and 2019
Summary
Since the 20th century, the global sea level has risen by 10-20 cm [1, 2], which is a slow natural disaster caused by global warming [3, 4], melting of polar glaciers [5,6,7,8,9] and thermal expansion of upper sea water [10,11,12]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected an indicative range of 26 to 77 cm global mean sea level rise (relative to 1986–2005) by 2100 for 1.5°C of global warming. This will cause a series of problems, such as coastal wetlands and lowland inundation [13, 14], coastal erosion [15, 16], flood and storm surge disasters [17, 18] and seawater intrusion [19]. Necessary to study the sea level change in such regions
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