Figure TS.6
Figure TS.6 | The effect of regional sea level rise on extreme sea level events at coastal locations. Due to projected global mean sea level (GMSL) rise, local sea levels that historically occurred once per century (historical centennial events, HCEs) are projected to become at least annual events at most locations during the 21st century. The height of a HCE varies widely, and depending on the level of exposure can already cause severe impacts. Impacts can continue to increase with rising frequency of HCEs. (a) Schematic illustration of extreme sea level events and their average recurrence in the recent past (1986–2005) and the future. As a consequence of mean sea level rise, HCEs are projected to recur more frequently in the future. (b) The year in which HCEs are expected to recur once per year on average under RCP8.5 and RCP2.6, at the 439 individual coastal locations where the observational record is sufficient. The absence of a circle indicates an inability to perform an assessment due to a lack of data but does not indicate absence of exposure and risk. The darker the circle, the earlier this transition is expected. The likely range is ±10 years for locations where this transition is expected before 2100. White circles (33% of locations under RCP2.6 and 10% under RCP8.5) indicate that HCEs are not expected to recur once per year before 2100. (c) An indication at which locations this transition of HCEs to annual events is projected to occur more than 10 years later under RCP2.6 compared to RCP8.5. As the scenarios lead to small differences by 2050 in many locations results are not shown here for RCP4.5 but they are available in Chapter 4. {4.2.3, Figure 4.10, Figure 4.12}