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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI15061822/00001
Material Information
- Title:
- A scaling approach to project regional sea level rise and its uncertainties
- Series Title:
- Earth System Dynamics Volume 4
- Creator:
- Perrette, M.
Landerer, F.
Riva, R.
Frieler, K.
Meinshausen,M.
- Affiliation:
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- California Institute of Technology
Delft University of Technology -- Department Geoscience and Remote Sensing -- TU Delft Climate Institute
Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
- Publisher:
- Copernicus Publications
- Publication Date:
- 2012
- Language:
- English
Notes
- Abstract:
- Climate change causes global mean sea level to
rise due to thermal expansion of seawater and loss of land
ice from mountain glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets. Locally,
sea level can strongly deviate from the global mean rise due
to changes in wind and ocean currents. In addition, gravitational
adjustments redistribute seawater away from shrinking
ice masses. However, the land ice contribution to sea
level rise (SLR) remains very challenging to model, and comprehensive
regional sea level projections, which include appropriate
gravitational adjustments, are still a nascent field
(Katsman et al., 2011; Slangen et al., 2011). Here, we present
an alternative approach to derive regional sea level changes
for a range of emission and land ice melt scenarios, combining
probabilistic forecasts of a simple climate model (MAGICC6)
with the new CMIP5 general circulation models.
The contribution from ice sheets varies considerably depending
on the assumptions for the ice sheet projections, and
thus represents sizeable uncertainties for future sea level rise.
However, several consistent and robust patterns emerge from
our analysis: at low latitudes, especially in the Indian Ocean
and Western Pacific, sea level will likely rise more than the
global mean (mostly by 10–20 %). Around the northeastern
Atlantic and the northeastern Pacific coasts, sea level will
rise less than the global average or, in some rare cases, even
fall. In the northwestern Atlantic, along the American coast, a
strong dynamic sea level rise is counteracted by gravitational
depression due to Greenland ice melt; whether sea level will
be above- or below-average will depend on the relative contribution
of these two factors. Our regional sea level projections
and the diagnosed uncertainties provide an improved
basis for coastal impact analysis and infrastructure planning
for adaptation to climate change. ( English )
Record Information
- Source Institution:
- Florida International University
- Rights Management:
- Please contact the owning institution for licensing and permissions. It is the user's responsibility to ensure use does not violate any third party rights.
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