Sea Level Rise

Safe Landing Climates Lighthouse Activity

We aim to quantify an “acceptable” rate of sea-level rise and its irreversibility from multiple decades to millennia. We will estimate the impact of storm surges and cyclones on coastal communities and assess the potential for adaptation. The aim will be to improve projections by facilitating better coordination between global climate, cryosphere, and coastal modeling. This requires a regional/local perspective and interaction with coastal planners because anthropogenically induced sea-level hazards are already affecting coastal habitats and threatening livelihoods in some regions. Depending on the local setting, safe landing in terms of sea level means that the rate of sea-level rise must be limited, slowed, or reversed to allow adaptation measures to keep pace and be effective.

Outcomes:

• More accurate understanding and prediction of poorly understood processes including ice sheet melting and future ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland, storm surges, and other global and regional sea-level drivers (including land subsidence)
• A fuller range of ice sheet models of different levels of complexity and resolution with evaluation to better constrain uncertainties
• New research on frameworks of coastal planning, adaptation, coastal protection, and the limits of adaptation
• Interaction of modelling efforts across spatial scales from global to coastal

This topic will draw on the WCRP Grand Challenge on Regional Sea-Level Change and Coastal Impacts and the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Core Project.

Working Group:

Contact: Narelle van der Wel - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Last Updated: 22 October 2025