ORCID Profile
0000-0002-7445-6321
Current Organisation
Rutgers University New Brunswick
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Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 05-05-2021
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-021-03427-0
Abstract: The Paris Agreement aims to limit global mean warming in the twenty-first century to less than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and to promote further efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius
Publisher: American Astronomical Society
Date: 22-09-2023
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2019
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 05-06-2020
Abstract: The rate of sea level rise has doubled from 1.8 millimeters per year over the 20th century to ∼3.4 millimeters per year in recent years. Saintilan et al. investigated the likely effects of this increasing rate of rise on coastal mangrove forest, a tropical ecosystem of key importance for coastal protection (see the Perspective by Lovelock). They reviewed data on mangrove accretion 10,000 to 7000 years before present, when the rate of sea level rise was even higher than today as a result of glacial ice melt. Their analysis suggests an upper threshold of 7 millimeters per year as the maximum rate of sea level rise associated with mangrove vertical development, beyond which the ecosystem fails to keep up with the change. Under projected rates of sea level rise, they predict that a deficit between accretion and sea level rise is likely to commence in the next 30 years. Science , this issue p. 1118 see also p. 1050
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-08-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-023-06448-Z
Abstract: Several coastal ecosystems—most notably mangroves and tidal marshes—exhibit biogenic feedbacks that are facilitating adjustment to relative sea-level rise (RSLR), including the sequestration of carbon and the trapping of mineral sediment 1 . The stability of reef-top habitats under RSLR is similarly linked to reef-derived sediment accumulation and the vertical accretion of protective coral reefs 2 . The persistence of these ecosystems under high rates of RSLR is contested 3 . Here we show that the probability of vertical adjustment to RSLR inferred from palaeo-stratigraphic observations aligns with contemporary in situ survey measurements. A deficit between tidal marsh and mangrove adjustment and RSLR is likely at 4 mm yr −1 and highly likely at 7 mm yr −1 of RSLR. As rates of RSLR exceed 7 mm yr −1 , the probability that reef islands destabilize through increased shoreline erosion and wave over-topping increases. Increased global warming from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C would double the area of mapped tidal marsh exposed to 4 mm yr −1 of RSLR by between 2080 and 2100. With 3 °C of warming, nearly all the world’s mangrove forests and coral reef islands and almost 40% of mapped tidal marshes are estimated to be exposed to RSLR of at least 7 mm yr −1 . Meeting the Paris agreement targets would minimize disruption to coastal ecosystems.
Publisher: Copernicus GmbH
Date: 14-02-2022
Abstract: Abstract. Robust, proxy-based reconstructions of relative sea-level (RSL) change are critical to distinguishing the processes that drive spatial and temporal sea-level variability. The relationships between in idual proxies and RSL can be complex and are often poorly represented by traditional methods that assume Gaussian likelihood distributions. We develop a new statistical framework to estimate past RSL change based on nonparametric, empirical modern distributions of proxies in relation to RSL, applying the framework to corals and mangroves as an illustrative ex le. We validate our model by comparing its skill in reconstructing RSL and rates of change to two previous RSL models using synthetic time-series datasets based on Holocene sea-level data from South Florida. The new framework results in lower bias, better model fit, and greater accuracy and precision than the two previous RSL models. We also perform sensitivity tests using sea-level scenarios based on two periods of interest – meltwater pulses (MWPs) and the Holocene – to analyze the sensitivity of the statistical reconstructions to the quantity and precision of proxy data we define high-precision indicators, such as mangroves and the reef-crest coral Acropora palmata, with 2σ vertical uncertainties within ± 3 m and lower-precision indicators, such as Orbicella spp., with 2σ vertical uncertainties within ± 10 m. For reconstructing rapid rates of change in RSL of up to ∼ 40 m kyr−1, such as those that may have characterized MWPs during deglacial periods, we find that employing the nonparametric model with 5 to 10 high-precision data points per kiloyear enables us to constrain rates to within ± 3 m kyr−1 (1σ). For reconstructing RSL with rates of up to ∼ 15 m kyr−1, as observed during the Holocene, we conclude that employing the model with 5 to 10 high-precision (or a combination of high- and low-precision) data points per kiloyear enables precise estimates of RSL within ±∼ 2 m (2σ) and accurate RSL reconstructions with errors ≲ 0.7 m. Employing the nonparametric model with only lower-precision indicators also produces fairly accurate estimates of RSL with errors ≲1.50 m, although with less precision, only constraining RSL to ±∼ 3–4 m (2σ). Although the model performs better than previous models in terms of bias, model fit, accuracy, and precision, it is computationally expensive to run because it requires inverting large matrices for every s le. The new model also provides minimal gains over similar models when a large quantity of high-precision data are available. Therefore, we recommend incorporating the nonparametric likelihood distributions when no other information (e.g., reef facies or epibionts indicative of shallow-water environments to refine coral elevational uncertainties) or no high-precision data are available at a location or during a given time period of interest.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-02-2017
DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS14387
Abstract: Sea-level rise is a global problem, yet to forecast future changes, we must understand how and why relative sea level (RSL) varied in the past, on local to global scales. In East and Southeast Asia, details of Holocene RSL are poorly understood. Here we present two independent high-resolution RSL proxy records from Belitung Island on the Sunda Shelf. These records capture spatial variations in glacial isostatic adjustment and paleotidal range, yet both reveal a RSL history between 6850 and 6500 cal years BP that includes two 0.6 m fluctuations, with rates of RSL change reaching 13±4 mm per year (2 σ ). Observations along the south coast of China, although of a lower resolution, reveal fluctuations similar in litude and timing to those on the Sunda Shelf. The consistency of the Southeast Asian records, from sites 2,600 km apart, suggests that the records reflect regional changes in RSL that are unprecedented in modern times.
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 29-07-2022
Abstract: Much uncertainty exists about the vulnerability of valuable tidal marsh ecosystems to relative sea level rise. Previous assessments of resilience to sea level rise, to which marshes can adjust by sediment accretion and elevation gain, revealed contrasting results, depending on contemporary or Holocene geological data. By analyzing globally distributed contemporary data, we found that marsh sediment accretion increases in parity with sea level rise, seemingly confirming previously claimed marsh resilience. However, subsidence of the substrate shows a nonlinear increase with accretion. As a result, marsh elevation gain is constrained in relation to sea level rise, and deficits emerge that are consistent with Holocene observations of tidal marsh vulnerability.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2017
Location: United States of America
No related grants have been discovered for Erica Ashe.