The impact of future sea-level rise on the European Shelf tides

Pickering, Mark; Wells, N. C.; Horsburgh, Kevin; Green, J.A.M.

doi:10.1016/j.csr.2011.11.011

Cited by 171 publications

(208 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

175

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The same assumption has been made by other authors, e.g. Pickering et al 40 , Howard et al 41 , who argued it was a reasonable approximation given the uncertainty over future shoreline position, which depends on submergence, morphodynamics and what sea defences may be put in place. Other authors have presented storm surge models of the Bay of Bengal that do include inundation, e.g, Lewis et al 42 , Flather 43 : but these generally aim to model the impact of individual storm events rather than change over a period of several decades.…”

Section: Model Approximations and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Modelling the increased frequency of extreme sea levels in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta due to sea level rise and other effects of climate change

Kay

Caesar

Wolf

et al. 2015

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Coastal flooding due to storm surge and high tides is a serious risk for inhabitants of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta, as much of the land is close to sea level. Climate change could lead to large areas of land being subject to increased flooding, salinization and ultimate abandonment in both West Bengal, India, and Bangladesh. IPCC 5 th assessment modelling of sea level rise and estimates of subsidence rates from the EU IMPACT2C project suggest that sea level in the GBM delta region may rise by 0.63 to 0.88 m by 2090, with some studies suggesting this could be up to 0.5 m higher if potential substantial melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet is included. These sea level rise scenarios lead to increased frequency of high water coastal events. Any effect of climate change on the frequency and severity of storms can also have an effect on extreme sea levels. A shelf-sea model of the Bay of Bengal has been used to investigate how the combined effect of sea level rise and changes in other environmental conditions under climate change may alter the frequency of extreme sea level events for the period 1971 to 2099. The model was forced using atmospheric and oceanic boundary conditions derived from climate model projections and the future scenario increase in sea level was applied at its ocean boundary. The model results show an increased likelihood of extreme sea level events through the 21st century, with the frequency of events increasing greatly in the second half of the century: water levels that occurred at decadal time intervals under present-day model conditions occurred in most years by the middle of the 21 st century and 3-15 times per year by 2100. The heights of the most extreme events tend to increase more in the first half of the century than the second. The modelled scenarios provide a case study of how sea level rise and other effects of climate change may combine to produce a greatly increased threat to life and property in the GBM delta by the end of this century.

show abstract

Section: Model Approximations and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Modelling the increased frequency of extreme sea levels in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta due to sea level rise and other effects of climate change

Kay

Caesar

Wolf

et al. 2015

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1. It would thus also require the knowledge of historical tides which might be difficult to estimate as the tide is not a stationary process, as highlighted for instance by studies of sea-level rise influence on tidal harmonics (Pickering et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How historical information can improve estimation and prediction of extreme coastal water levels: application to the Xynthia event at La Rochelle (France)

Bulteau

Idier

Lambert

et al. 2015

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The knowledge of extreme coastal water levels is useful for coastal flooding studies or the design of coastal defences. While deriving such extremes with standard analyses using tide-gauge measurements, one often needs to deal with limited effective duration of observation which can result in large statistical uncertainties. This is even truer when one faces the issue of outliers, those particularly extreme values distant from the others which increase the uncertainty on the results. In this study, we investigate how historical information, even partial, of past events reported in archives can reduce statistical uncertainties and relativise such outlying observations. A Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method is developed to tackle this issue. We apply this method to the site of La Rochelle (France), where the storm Xynthia in 2010 generated a water level considered so far as an outlier. Based on 30 years of tide-gauge measurements and 8 historical events, the analysis shows that (1) integrating historical information in the analysis greatly reduces statistical uncertainties on return levels (2) Xynthia's water level no longer appears as an outlier, (3) we could have reasonably predicted the annual exceedance probability of that level beforehand (predictive probability for 2010 based on data until the end of 2009 of the same order of magnitude as the standard estimative probability using data until the end of 2010). Such results illustrate the usefulness of historical information in extreme value analyses of coastal water levels, as well as the relevance of the proposed method to integrate heterogeneous data in such analyses.

show abstract

“…However, it should be noted that changes in sea level and stratification will have some effect on local tidal amplitudes and the implications of this require further investigation (e.g. Pickering et al 2012;Gräwe et al 2014;see Sect. 6.2).…”

Section: General Aspects and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This could be important from both a flood perspective and a consideration of renewable energy generation. The recent study by Pickering et al (2012) suggests changes in the tides may result in the North Sea due to altered dynamics. They showed that a 2-m SLR would result in a * 5 cm increase in M 2 tidal amplitude in the central North Sea and Southern Bight, and a similar decrease in between.…”

Section: Future Changes In Extreme Sea Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projected Change—North Sea

Schrum

Lowe

Meier

et al. 2016

North Sea Region Climate Change Assessment

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Increasing numbers of regional climate change scenario assessments have become available for the North Sea. A critical review of the regional studies has helped identify robust changes, challenges, uncertainties and specific recommendations for future research. Coherent findings from the climate change impact studies reviewed in this chapter include overall increases in sea level and ocean temperature, a freshening of the North Sea, an increase in ocean acidification and a decrease in primary production. However, findings from multi-model ensembles show the amplitude and spatial pattern of the projected changes in sea level, temperature, salinity and primary production are not consistent among the various regional projections and remain uncertain. Different approaches are used to downscale global climate change impacts, each with advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of the downscaling method employed, the regional studies are ultimately affected by the forcing global climate models. Projecting regional climate change impacts on biogeochemistry and primary production is currently limited by a lack of consistent downscaling approaches for marine and terrestrial impacts. Substantial natural variability in the North Sea region from annual to multi-decadal time scales is a particular challenge for projecting regional climate change impacts. Natural variability dominates long-term trends in wind fields and strongly wind-influenced characteristics like local sea level, storm C. Schrum

show abstract

The impact of future sea-level rise on the European Shelf tides

Cited by 171 publications

References 49 publications

Modelling the increased frequency of extreme sea levels in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta due to sea level rise and other effects of climate change

Modelling the increased frequency of extreme sea levels in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta due to sea level rise and other effects of climate change

How historical information can improve estimation and prediction of extreme coastal water levels: application to the Xynthia event at La Rochelle (France)

Projected Change—North Sea

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About