Path Analysis of Sea-Level Rise and Its Impact

Jean Chung, Guanchao Tong, Jiayou Chao and Wei Zhu
Additional contact information
Jean Chung: Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
Guanchao Tong: Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
Jiayou Chao: Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
Wei Zhu: Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA

Stats, 2021, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Global sea-level rise has been drawing increasingly greater attention in recent years, as it directly impacts the livelihood and sustainable development of humankind. Our research focuses on identifying causal factors and pathways on sea level changes (both global and regional) and subsequently predicting the magnitude of such changes. To this end, we have designed a novel analysis pipeline including three sequential steps: (1) a dynamic structural equation model (dSEM) to identify pathways between the global mean sea level (GMSL) and various predictors, (2) a vector autoregression model (VAR) to quantify the GMSL changes due to the significant relations identified in the first step, and (3) a generalized additive model (GAM) to model the relationship between regional sea level and GMSL. Historical records of GMSL and other variables from 1992 to 2020 were used to calibrate the analysis pipeline. Our results indicate that greenhouse gases, water, and air temperatures, change in Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheet mass, sea ice, and historical sea level all play a significant role in future sea-level rise. The resulting 95% upper bound of the sea-level projections was combined with a threshold for extreme flooding to map out the extent of sea-level rise in coastal communities using a digital coastal tracker.

Keywords: unified (dynamic) structural equation model; generalized additive model; vector autoregression model; global mean sea level (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 C10 C11 C14 C15 C16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-905X/5/1/2/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2571-905X/5/1/2/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jstats:v:5:y:2021:i:1:p:2-25:d:710128

Access Statistics for this article

Stats is currently edited by Mrs. Minnie Li

More articles in Stats from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().