Sea level projections for the German Coast

Sea level rise is a certain consequence and one of the most important threats associated with climate change. It increases the risk of flooding of low-lying land at the German Coast.

In cooperation of the “Network of Experts” of the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport and the DAS core service “climate and water”, we aim to provide high-quality projections of relative sea level change for the German coastal areas, both in terms of spatial data as well as time series for specific stations. Most of the drivers for sea level change must be considered on a continental or global scale. The main exception for this in northern Europe is land uplift as its impacts are regional and dependent on glacial isostatic adjustment as well as local processes. We therefore created a new set of sea level projections for the North Sea and Baltic Region. This dataset is based on the IPCC 6th Assessment Report (AR6) projections of absolute sea level change, which we combine with a new and high-resolution land elevation model over Fennoscandia (instead of the coarse land elevation model for this region used in the IPCC AR6). The data will eventually be published via the “DAS core service”.