Coastal sea level projections with improved accounting for vertical land motion

Guoqi Han; Zhimin Ma; Nan Chen; Jingsong Yang; Nancy Chen

doi:10.1038/srep16085

Coastal sea level projections with improved accounting for vertical land motion

Sci Rep. 2015 Nov 3:5:16085. doi: 10.1038/srep16085.

Authors

Guoqi Han¹, Zhimin Ma¹, Nan Chen², Jingsong Yang², Nancy Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Centre, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, St. John's, Canada.
² Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Hangzhou, China.

Abstract

Regional and coastal mean sea level projections in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) account only for vertical land motion (VLM) associated with glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which may significantly under- or over-estimate sea level rise. Here we adjust AR5-like regional projections with the VLM from Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) measurements and/or from a combination of altimetry and tide-gauge data, which include both GIA and non-GIA VLM. Our results at selected tide-gauge locations on the North American and East Asian coasts show drastically different projections with and without non-GIA VLM being accounted for. The present study points to the importance of correcting IPCC AR5 coastal projections for the non-GIA VLM in making adaptation decisions.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't