Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering and Sustainable Coastal Systems Cluster, University of Central Florida, 12800 Pegasus Drive, Suite 211, Orlando, Florida 32816-2450, USA.
Ocean and Earth Science, National Oceanography Centre, University of Southampton, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
Nat Commun. 2017 Jul 7;8:16075. doi: 10.1038/ncomms16075.
One of the main consequences of mean sea level rise (SLR) on human settlements is an increase in flood risk due to an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme sea levels (ESL). While substantial research efforts are directed towards quantifying projections and uncertainties of future global and regional SLR, corresponding uncertainties in contemporary ESL have not been assessed and projections are limited. Here we quantify, for the first time at global scale, the uncertainties in present-day ESL estimates, which have by default been ignored in broad-scale sea-level rise impact assessments to date. ESL uncertainties exceed those from global SLR projections and, assuming that we meet the Paris agreement goals, the projected SLR itself by the end of the century in many regions. Both uncertainties in SLR projections and ESL estimates need to be understood and combined to fully assess potential impacts and adaptation needs.
海平面均值上升（Mean Sea Level Rise，简称 SLR）对人类住区的主要影响之一，是由于极端海平面（Extreme Sea Levels，简称 ESL）的强度和频率增加，导致洪灾风险上升。尽管人们投入了大量的研究努力来量化未来全球和区域海平面均值上升的预估和不确定性，但对当前 ESL 的对应不确定性尚未进行评估，预估也有限。在本研究中，我们首次在全球范围内量化了当前 ESL 估算的不确定性，这些不确定性在迄今为止的大规模海平面上升影响评估中被默认忽略。ESL 的不确定性超过了全球海平面均值上升预估的不确定性，而且假设我们能够实现巴黎协定的目标，那么在本世纪末，许多地区的预估海平面上升本身就已经超过了 ESL 的预估。因此，为了全面评估潜在影响和适应需求，我们需要理解并综合考虑 SLR 预估不确定性和 ESL 估算不确定性。
