GLOBAL OCEAN WAVES AND STORM SURGE CHANGES UNDER A WARMING CLIMATE

Abstract

Impact assessments of climate change on coastal hazard risk are conducted in order to evaluate how coastal communities should adapt their coastal defense systems and other mitigation measures going forward. In this context, global mean sea level rise has been well-studied for several decades now. In addition, to mean sea level rise, it is important to estimate future changes in extreme sea levels due to storm surges and ocean waves for coastal adaptation purposes. This study aims to estimate the climate change impacts on both global waves and storm surges under an extremely high-resolution Global Climate Model (GCM) forcing continuously over 150 years, starting from the mid-20th century and extending to the end of the 21st century as the climate warms. This allows us to gain a consistent and temporally seamless understanding of past and projected future changes to global waves and storm surges.