Climate resilient ports: “the power is in our hands”

A subject that is not always high on the list but nevertheless a fundamentally important one.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has just released a report which provides the latest data on global and European sea level rise.

“Global mean sea level (GMSL),” states the report, “has risen about 19cm since 1900, at an accelerating rate. Climate models,” it says, “project a GMSL rise during the 21st century that will likely be in the range of 0.29 – 0.59m for a low emissions scenario and 0.61 – 1.10m for a high one.”

With a faster disintegration of the polar ice sheets then the EEA predicts a bigger rise, “up to 2,4m in 2100 and to 15m by 2300.”

The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are identified as the largest potential contributors to GMSL rise, but it is pointed out that their behaviour is “still rather uncertain, particularly under high emissions scenarios.

“Each five-year delay in the peaking of global greenhouse gas emissions,” underlines the report, “increases the median sea-level rise projections for 2300 by 0.2m and extreme sea level projections by up to one metre.”

On the rate of rise, the report notes that for the period 1993-2019, for which satellite-based measurements are available, there has been a rise of around 3.1mm/year.” This,” it says, is “more than twice as fast as during the period 1900-1992. Further, for the period 2010-2019, the rate of GMSL rise has increased to 4.4mm/year.

Interestingly, the traditional main driver of sea level rise was thermal expansion but today, the Agency confirms, the melting of glaciers and disintegration of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets “have exceeded the effects of thermal expansion since about 2000.”

There is, however, also the phenomenon in certain areas of land levels rising because of what the EEA describes as “post-glacial rebound since the last ice age.” As an example, due to this, “sea levels along the northern Baltic Sea Coast and – to a lesser degree – the northern Atlantic coast are sinking because land levels are still rising,” explains the Agency.

The bottom line, however, is that monitoring sea level rise is a fundamental aspect of coastal protection and port planning that requires more attention today and going forward. Furthermore, it is something that with a responsible approach to the environment we can all have a positive influence over. “The power is in our hands,” as the saying goes.