Sea-level rise projections for Sweden based on the new IPCC special report: The ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate

• Published in: Ambio
• Main Authors: Hieronymus, Magnus, Kalén, Ola
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2020
• Subjects: Ecology; Environmental Chemistry; Geography, Planning and Development; General Medicine; Antarctic; Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01313-8; http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13280-019-01313-8.pdf; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-019-01313-8/fulltext.html

Abstract New sea-level rise projections for Sweden are presented. Compared to earlier projections, we have here, more carefully, taken regional variations in sea-level rise into consideration. The better treatment of regional variations leads to lower sea-level rise projections for Sweden. However, recent research has also shown that Antarctic ice loss, in high emission scenarios, could be greater than what was believed earlier. Taking also this into account, we find a near cancellation between the increased Antarctic contribution and the decrease owing to the better treatment of spatial inhomogeneities. Sweden’s sensitivity to melt from Antarctica and Greenland is also estimated using a new set of sea-level fingerprint kernels, and the sensitivity to melt from Greenland is found to be weak. To illustrate the influence mean sea-level rise has on extreme sea levels, it is also shown how the return period of sea-level extremes changes as a function of time owing to mean sea-level rise in the different projections.