Research into sea level rise spans many areas of science (oceanography, glaciology, hydrology, climate change, geophysics etc.). Sea level is an integrated quantity of a number of global processes and is also of considerable practical relevance to coastal populations and infrastructure. This session will include presentations which provide new insight into the space and time scales of sea level rise and variability and into the reasons for sea level change in the past, present and future.
There are many important questions which will be explored in the session. For example, do we fully understand the reasons for the rise and its recent acceleration? How large will sea-level rise resulting from global warming be, both from a global mean and a regional perspective? Will sea-level rise resulting from global warming intensify natural variability in regional sea level and local tides?
The dangers of coastal flooding and erosion will be further aggravated in some parts of the world by intensifying storm surge heights. The question is, where the intensification may take place, how stable such expectations are across different scenario simulations, and how large the effect may be. We invite contributions relevant to regional and local studies of ongoing and possible future developments of mean sea level and storm related variations, methods of scenario constructions, links to global developments of the various sea level forcing factors such as temperature rise and ice sheet response, the ensuing needs and options for coastal adaptation and the opportunities to mitigate the expected rise and its impacts.