Detailed projections of coastal climate change until 2100 in N Europe

ESSP conference, Beijing, 12. November 2006 Parallel 37: Sea level rise, vulnerability and impacts

Hans von Storch, Katja Woth, Ralf Weisse, Burkhardt Rockel and Lidia Gaslikova

GKSS Research Center, Geesthacht, Germany

Overview

• Downscaling cascade to describe regional and local weather related variability n past decades.

• Usage of the same cascade to construct consistent scenarios of possible future regional and local climate conditions.

• Outlook

Katja Woth

Globales Geschehen

Dynamisches Downscaling

Hydrodynamisches Modellder Nordseezirkulation

Empirisches Downscaling

Pegel St.

Pauli

Zusammenarbeit u. a. mit BAW, BSH, ALR Husum, FSK Norderney, Hamburg Port Authority u.a.

Aber wie sieht es regional und lokal aus?

Extreme wind speeds over sea

– simulated and recordedsimuliert

Beobachtet

Trends of annual percentiles of surge heights

Weisse & Plüß, 2005

50%iles

90%iles

1958-2002

1958-2002

Changing significant waveheight, 1958-2002

wind

waves

waves

EU-Project PRUDENCE (Prediction of Regional scenarios and Uncertainties for Defining EuropeaN Climate change

risks and Effects)

Impact scenarios

today

scenario

GCM

today

scenario

RCMs

scaleglobal local

ImpactImpactmodelmodel

Storm SurgeModel forthe North Sea:

- TRIM 3D

RegionalClimate Models:

- CLM- REMO- HIRHAM- RCAO

Global Climate Model

(HadAM3) IPCC A2

SRES Scenario

(1961-1990 / 2071-2100)

RCAO HIRHAM

CLM REMO5

A2 - CTL: changes in 99 % - iles of wind speed (6 hourly, DJF): west wind sector selected (247.5 to 292.5 deg)

Changes of annual 99-percentile wave heights averaged across a series of simulations using different models and scenarios (in m).Colouring indicates areas where signals from all models and scenarios have the same sign; red-positive, blue-negative.

Weisse und Grabemann, 2006

Projections for the future / surge Projections for the future / surge meteorological forcing: HIRHAM / RCAmeteorological forcing: HIRHAM / RCA

Differences in inter-annual percentiles of surge / A2 - CTL: HIRHAM

Differences in inter-annual percentiles of surge / A2 - CTL: RCA

“Localisation”: From the coast into the estuary

St Pauli

Scenarios 2030, 2085

Only the effect of changing weather conditions is considered, not the effect of water works such as dredging the shipping channel.

Outlook

• Similar challenges with assessing changes of other storms – tropical typhoons (SE Asia) and extra-tropical polar lows (N Atlantic)

• “Detection and Attribution”• Dataset CoastDat• Storms and damage

New efforts underway at GKSS

The CoastDat-effort at the Institute for Coastal Research at GKSS (ICR@gkss)

Long-term, high-resolution reconstuctions (50 years) of present and recent developments of weather related phenomena in coastal regions as well as scenarios of future developments (100 years) Northeast Atlantic and northern Europe “Standard” model systems (“frozen”) Assessment of changes in storms, ocean waves, storm surges, currents and regional transport of anthropogenic substances. Data freely available.

Applications many authorities with responsibilities for different aspects of the German coasts economic applications by engineering companies (off-shore wind potentials and

risks) and shipbuilding companyPublic information

www.coastdat.de

Damages and storms(Meeting of scientists and re-insurances; with Munich Re;

Hohenkammer, May 2006)

Consensus statement:„1. Climate change is real, and has a significant human component related to greenhouse gases.2. Direct economic losses of global disasters have increased inrecent decades with particularly large increases since the 1980s.8. Analyses of long-term records of disaster losses indicate that societal change and economic development are the principal factors responsible for the documented increasing losses to date.9. The vulnerability of communities to natural disasters is determined by their economic development and other social characteristics.10. There is evidence that changing patterns of extreme events are drivers for recent increases in global losses.13. In the near future the quantitative link (attribution) of trends in storm and flood losses to climate changes related to GHG emissions is unlikely to be answered unequivocally.“