Projected 21st century regional sea-level rise for scenarios of land-based ice melt from the ICE2SEA project

Projected future sea-level change for a particular location can be thought of as being composed of a global mean sea-level change component, for which ocean expansion and addition of extra water contribute, and a component from changes in the local variations of sea level under a number of influences: changes in ocean dynamics; geographical variations in expansion; and the gravitationally consistent sea level variations ("fingerprints") due to changes in land-based ice masses. Here we provide case study projections of regional sea level change around the globe, given new scenarios of land-based ice melt. These ice melt scenarios (a "mid-range" and a "high-end" scenario) are provided by the EU ice2sea project with updated projections of the glacier and ice cap contribution, and ice sheet contributions derived from simplified simulations which include information about likely regions of instability. Patterns of projected sea level change around Europe are obtained by combining the results of simulations with the HadCM3 coupled climate model, where the additional projected ice melt water is input at appropriate sections of coastline, with consistent ice melt fingerprint patterns. Next these patterns are combined with projected ranges of global mean sea-level rise to give a range of regional sea-level rise. The implications for changes in European sea level extremes are discussed.