气候变化领域集成服务门户

Rising seas increase the exposure, vulnerability, and thus the risk associated with hurricane storm surge flooding across the coastal floodplain. A methodology is applied to down select a suite of synthetic storms from recent flood insurance studies. The purpose is to force wind-wave and hurricane storm surge models of the northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) coast (Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle) that represent the future landscape and derive the 1 and 0.2% annual chance floodplain for present-day and four sea-level-rise (SLR) scenarios. Vast new regions become part of the 100-year floodplain by the end of the century. In Mississippi, the present-day 500-year return period event is likely to be the 100-year event under an SLR of 1.2m. Throughout most of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, the present-day 500-year return period event becomes a 100-year event with just 0.5m of SLR. Results indicate the need to apply a coastal dynamic modeling approach to plan and prepare for the effects of SLR across the NGOM and other low-gradient coastal landscapes.