An Analysis and Projection of Sea Level Rise at Sabine Pass, Texas, along the Coast of Mexico Gulf

摘要

Sabine Pass is a small coastal city along the coast of Mexico Gulf in Texas. It is located about 70 miles northeast from Houston where the maximum land subsidence is about 10 ft. due to groundwater withdrawals. No significant groundwater was developed in the shallow unconsolidated aquifers in the Sabine Pass area. The monitored and simulated groundwater level was not changed in this area. Thus it was assumed that there is no significance land subsidence due to groundwater withdrawals in this area. The NOAA sea level monitoring data at Sabine Pass was employed to analyze historical sea level rise (SLR) and project future SLR for verifying the SLR projection in the Galveston-Houston region. The relative SLR trend of the station is 5.80+/-0.77 mm/year based on monthly mean sea level data from 1958 to 2017, which is the sum of global mean SLR 1.70 mm/year, local mean SLR -0.04 mm/year, bedrock subsidence 2.41 mm/year, and secondary consolidation subsidence 1.73 mm/year. Relative SLR at Sabine Pass was projected for four different IPCC scenarios by the year 2100, of which, the lowest SLR is 1.90 feet (0.58 m), the intermediate low is 2.95 feet (0.9 m), the intermediate high is 5.25 feet (1.60m), and the highest is 7.87 feet (2.40m) based on the values of global SLR acceleration for the four scenarios from IPCC. This preliminary result can verify a projected relative SLR in a range of 0.66 to 2.48 m for the four scenarios in the Galveston-Houston region.