Clim. Dynam. http://doi.org/bc6v (2016)

Credit: © DAVID TIPLING PHOTO LIBRARY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Coastal areas have high population density so changes in water level, both sea-level rise and surges associated with extreme events, are a serious threat. While there is much research on sea-level change, less is known of how storm surges, driven by winds and atmospheric pressure fields associated with storm systems, will change in coming years.

Previous work on extreme storm-surge levels has focused at the local or regional scale, now Michalis Vousdoukas of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy and the University of the Aegean, Lesbos, Greece, and colleagues consider changes across Europe for 2010–2040 and 2070–2100. They use a hydrological model forced with projected wind and pressure fields from 8 CMIP5 models, under moderate- and high-emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and 8.5) and compare with the 1970–2000 baseline period.

The North and Baltic Sea coasts show the largest increases, with the eastern shores experiencing the highest rise. In contrast, southern European coasts have minimal change expected, except under the high-emissions scenario. Storm-surge levels are projected to increase around 15% by 2100 for the entire European coast under the high-emissions scenario, with 14% of the coastline seeing storm-surge contributions exceeding 30% of the expected relative sea-level rise.