1,2,1,3,5,6,7,8,1,2,9,12,13,14,1,11,15,16- 1International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) Program, Laxenburg, Austria (nauels@iiasa.ac.at)
- 2School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
- 3Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- 4Earth and Life Institute, UC Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
- 5Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA
- 6Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
- 7Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany
- 8Doctoral Training Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- 9Climate Resource, Melbourne, Australia
- 10School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, UK
- 11Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK
- 12Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany
- 13Department of Estuarine and Delta Systems, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Yerseke, The Netherlands
- 14Faculty of Geosciences, Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- 15School of Geography, University of Bristol, UK
- 16School of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Simplified sea level modelling approaches are developed to efficiently explore future sea level rise and associated uncertainties. Sea level emulators (SLEs) are mostly calibrated against the responses of process-based complex models, they can be run on multi-century timescales and feed into regionalisation efforts, integrated assessment and coastal risk modelling. Here, we introduce the Sea Level Emulator Intercomparison Project (SLEIP) to systematically assess available sea level emulators and identify future research needs to maximise the utility of this modelling approach. SLEIP covers 13 datasets from the participating models BRICK (with DOECLIM and SNEASY climate forcing), FACTS (7 individual emulator workflows), FRISIA, MAGICC, ProFSea and SURFER. All of the participating SLEs produce projections out to the year 2300 for the main sea level drivers thermal expansion, glacier mass loss, Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet mass loss, and land water storage. Participating SLEs differ in whether and how they account for low-confidence, high-impact processes of poorly known likelihood, such as marine ice-cliff instability (MICI). The SLE components with the largest response range are the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet, with the Antarctic ice sheet becoming the most uncertain sea level driver in 2300. With identical MAGICC climate forcing input, 2300 median global mean sea level rise estimates range from 0.46 m to 1.71 m (outer 17th-83rd percentile range: 0.32-3.20 m) under very low emissions (SSP1-1.9), 0.67 m to 2.01 m (0.47-3.56 m) under low emissions (SSP1-2.6), 1.64 m to 4.07 m (1.15-10.53 m) under moderate emissions (SSP2-4.5), 2.35 m to 9.33 m (1.68-14.39 m) under high emissions (SSP3-7.0), and 2.44 m to 11.16 m (1.74-15.79 m) under very high emissions (SSP5-8.5), all relative to 1995-2014. SLEIP also allows investigating the sea level response under overshoot. Under the overshoot scenario SSP5-3.4-OS (peak GMT: 2.3 °C, 2100 GMT: 1.9 °C), median projections range from 0.45 m to 0.86 m (0.36-1.31 m) in 2100 and 0.80 m to 2.30 m (0.56-9.82 m) in 2300.
How to cite: Nauels, A., Möller, T., Couplet, V., Kopp, R. E., Kumar, P., Mengel, M., Munday, G., Nicholls, Z. R. J., Palmer, M. D., Ramme, L., Slangen, A. B. A., Smith, C., Weeks, J. H., and Wong, T. E.: Assessing emulated multi-century global mean sea level projections - the Sea Level Emulator Intercomparison Project (SLEIP), EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-6946, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-6946, 2026.
