Jeremy Martinich

Joint effects of storm surge and sea-level rise on US Coasts: new economic estimates of impacts, adaptation, and benefits of mitigation policy

Recent literature, the US Global Change Research Program’s National Climate Assessment, and recent events, such as Hurricane Sandy, highlight the need to take better account of both storm surge and sea-level rise (SLR) in assessing coastal risks of climate change. This study combines three models—a tropical cyclone simulation model; a storm surge model; and a model for economic impact and adaptation—to estimate the joint effects of storm surge and SLR for the US coast through 2100. The model is tested using multiple SLR scenarios, including those incorporating estimates of dynamic ice-sheet melting, two global greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation policy scenarios, and multiple general circulation model climate sensitivities. The results illustrate that a large area of coastal land and property is at risk of damage from storm surge today; that land area and economic value at risk expands over time as seas rise and as storms become more intense; that adaptation is a cost-effective response to this risk, but residual impacts remain after adaptation measures are in place; that incorporating site-specific episodic storm surge increases national damage estimates by a factor of two relative to SLR-only estimates, with greater impact on the East and Gulf coasts; and that mitigation of GHGs contributes to significant lessening of damages. For a mid-range climate-sensitivity scenario that incorporates dynamic ice sheet melting, the approach yields national estimates of the impacts of storm surge and SLR of

Assessing Sea-Level Rise Impacts: A GIS-Based Framework and Application to Coastal New Jersey

990 billion through 2100 (net of adaptation, cumulative undiscounted 2005

Climate change impacts and greenhouse gas mitigation effects on U.S. water quality

); GHG mitigation policy reduces the impacts of the mid-range climate-sensitivity estimates by

Climate change damages to Alaska public infrastructure and the economics of proactive adaptation

84 to

Economic impacts of climate change on water resources in the coterminous United States

100 billion.

Climate change impacts on US agriculture and forestry: benefits of global climate stabilization

The impact of sea-level rise on coastal properties depends critically on the human response to the threat, which in turn depends on several factors, including the immediacy of the risk, the magnitude of property value at risk, options for adapting to the threat and the cost of those options, and in some cases, land-use or regulatory restrictions that apply to the property. This article reports on a new effort to model the response to and economic impacts of sea-level rise on coastal properties using a spatially comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS)-based modeling approach that considers each of the aforementioned factors. The approach is applied to a multi-county section of New Jerseys Atlantic coast to provide estimates of the costs of protection, elevation, and abandonment. The new model yields impact estimates higher than prior estimates, resulting from recent increases in the value of coastal property at risk, the spatially comprehensive nature of the approach, and our use of more recent and accurate elevation data. The approach will ultimately yield two types of results: national-level estimates of the benefits of reducing sea-level rise through control of greenhouse gas emissions; and local-level results assessing management actions that could facilitate adaptation to sea-level rise risks.

Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation on the Supply, Management, and Use of Water Resources in the United States

Climate change will have potentially significant effects on freshwater quality due to increases in river and lake temperatures, changes in the magnitude and seasonality of river runoff, and more frequent and severe extreme events. These physical impacts will in turn have economic consequences through effects on riparian development, river and reservoir recreation, water treatment, harmful aquatic blooms, and a range of other sectors. In this paper, we analyze the physical and economic effects of changes in freshwater quality across the contiguous U.S. in futures with and without global-scale greenhouse gas mitigation. Using a water allocation and quality model of 2119 river basins, we estimate the impacts of various projected emissions outcomes on several key water quality indicators, and monetize these impacts with a water quality index approach. Under mitigation, we find that water temperatures decrease considerably and that dissolved oxygen levels rise in response. We find that the annual economic impacts on water quality of a high emissions scenario rise from

Climate Change Impacts on Harmful Algal Blooms in U.S. Freshwaters: A Screening-Level Assessment

1.4 billion in 2050 to

Climate change impacts on freshwater fish, coral reefs, and related ecosystem services in the United States

4 billion in 2100, leading to present value mitigation benefits, discounted at 3%, of approximately

Managing for No Net Loss of Ecological Services: An Approach for Quantifying Loss of Coastal Wetlands due to Sea Level Rise

17.5 billion over the 2015–2100 period.