100 Year Events and Sea Level Rise
The Art
The Science
“The colours of the dots express the factor by which the frequency of extreme sea level (ESL) events increase in the future for events which historically have a return period of 100 years. Hence a value of 50 means that what is currently 1-in-100 year event will happen every 2 years due to a rise in mean sea level. Results are shown for three RCP scenarios and two future time slices as median values. ..”
“ In summary, ESL events estimates as presented in this subsection, clearly show that as a consequence of SLR, events which are currently rare (e.g., with an average return period of 100 years), will occur annually or more frequently at most available locations for RCP8.5 by the end of the century (high confidence). For some locations, this change will occur as soon as mid-century for RCP8.5 and by 2100 for all emission scenarios. The affected locations are particularly located in low-latitude regions, away from the tropical cyclone (TC) tracks. In these locations, historical sea level variability due to tides and storm surges is small compared to projected mean SLR. Therefore, even limited changes in mean sea level will have a noticeable effect on ESLs, and for some locations, even RCP2.6 will lead to the annual occurrence of historically rare events by mid-century…”
IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, 20__, Chapter 4: Sea Level Rise and Implications for Low-Lying Islands, Coasts and Communities, Figure 4.12
