Trends in Europe storm surge extremes match the rate of sea-level rise

Article

关键词: NORTH-ATLANTIC;    PROJECTIONS;    ADAPTATION;    REANALYSIS;    WEATHER;    MODEL;    CMIP5;    POWER;   

DOI  :  10.1038/s41586-022-04426-5

来源: SCIE

【 摘 要 】

Coastal communities acrossthe world are already feelingthe disastrous impacts of climate changethrough variations in extreme sea levels(1). Thesevariations reflect the combined effect of sea-level rise and changes in storm surge activity. Understanding the relative importance ofthesetwo factors in altering the likelihood of extreme events is crucial to the success of coastal adaptation measures. Existing analyses oftide gauge records(2-10) agreethat sea-level rise has been a considerable driver oftrends in sea-level extremes since at least1960. However, the contribution from changes in storminess remains unclear, owing tothe difficulty of inferring this contribution from sparse data and the consequent inconclusive resultsthat have accumulated in the literature(11,12). Here we analyse tide gauge observations using spatial Bayesian methods(13) to showthat, contrary to current thought, trends in surge extremes and sea-level rise both made comparable contributionstothe overall change in extreme sea levels in Europe since1960. We determine that the trend pattern of surge extremes reflectsthe contributions from a dominant north-south dipole associated with internal climate variability and a single-sign positive pattern related to anthropogenic forcing. Our results demonstrate that both external and internal influences can considerably affect the likelihood of surge extremes over periods as long as 60 years, suggesting that the current coastal planning practice of assuming stationary surge extremes(1,14) might be inadequate.

【 授权许可】

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