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Sea Level Rise

Sea levels may rise twice as much by the end of this century than was previously predicted. That's according to an announcement last week by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Also last week, the Oakland-based Pacific Institute released a study finding that hundreds of thousands of people and billions of dollars of California infrastructure and property will be at risk if ocean levels rise 55 inches. What should we do to prepare?
— "Oceans rising," Forum, KQED radio, March 16, 2009 (Listen to the program)

Latest from the Team

The Climate Action Team is meeting with pertinent staff from various divisions to engage in a series of dialogues regarding scenarios for sea level rises, and changes in temperatures and precipitations. A draft summary helps you to think about impacts and adaptation in your area and a list of questions helps to facilitate the dialogue. After each dialogue, key outcomes are summarized. A Google map on Sea Level Rise Impact Scenarios for Various Water Resources Features within the Santa Clara County is provided to help see different scenarios for sea level rise.

Tools Available to Date (updated October 2009)

The latest Army Corps of Engineers guidance stipulated that impacts to coastal and estuarine zones caused by sea-level change must be considered in all phases of Civil Works programs (July 1, 2009). The Climate Action Team has compiled the following for District staff's use:

  1. Global Climate Change: NASA's Eyes on the Earth. Latest statistics on climate change, including a Sea Level Viewer.

  2. Climate Wizard. This site presents precipitation and temperature scenarios, displayed geographically, through the year 2100. (From the Nature Conservancy, University of Washington, and University of Southern Mississippi)

  3. Sea Level Rise Impact Scenarios for Various Water Resources Features within the Santa Clara County. A Google map is provided to help see different scenarios for sea level rise.

  4. Water Resource Policies and Authorities Incorporating Sea-Level Change Considerations in Civil Works Programs: This circular provides United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) guidance for incorporating the direct and indirect physical effects of projected future sea-level change in managing, planning, engineering, designing, constructing, operating, and maintaining USACE projects and systems of projects. (July 1, 2009).

  5. Risk and Uncertainty Analysis. This site provides software that supports risk and uncertainty analysis in hydraulic engineering systems used by the San Francisquito Creek Flood Damage & Reduction Ecosystem Restoration project. The Army Corps of Engineers currently uses the @Risk computer program to perform Monte Carlo statistical analysis for stage-damage estimates for various flood frequency events. This analysis is a used to account for a lack of complete knowledge concerning the phenomena and processes inherent in problem definition and resolution. Uncertainties in hydraulic engineering system design can be divided into four basic categories:

    1. hydrologic or design discharge determination;
    2. hydraulic or accuracy in geometric and Manning's roughness variables;
    3. structural or likelihood of levee failure, and
    4. economic or stage-damage relationships
      5. .
    Reliability analysis typically includes:
    1. identify and analyze the uncertainties of contributing factors to the system;
    2. combine the uncertainties of the stochastic factors to determine the overall reliability of the structure (hydraulic utility).
    Risk-Reliability-Based Hydraulics Engineering Design provides further information.

  6. FEMA and Sea Level Rise. The Federal Emergency Management Administration's (FEMA) 1991 study, Projected Impact of Relative Sea Level Rise on the National Flood Insurance Program, determined that if sea levels rise by 1 foot between 1990 and 2100, flood damages on NFIP-insured property would increase 36-58 percent. If sea levels rise by 3 feet, the increase would be 102-200 percent. In June 2009, FEMA Launches Effort to Measure Impact of Climate Change on Flood Insurance. FEMA's report, Hurricane Ike in Texas and Louisiana (2009), has a chapter, "Planning for a Sustainable Coast", that incorporates sea level rise. Designing for Flood Levels above the BFE (2006) is a publication issued after Hurricane Katrina that recommends designing for flood levels above the base flood elevation, in part because those levels do not account for sea level rise and more frequent severe storms.

    FEMA has also developed various training courses: for example, Catastrophe Readiness and Response, deals with slow-motion catastrophes including sea level rise and drought; another course on coastal hazards management deals with sea level rise.

Latest Policy Directives or Discussions (updated August 2009)

California Climate Adaptation Strategy

Description: State of California's comprehensive plan to guide adaptation to climate change, becoming the first state to develop such a strategy.
Source: California's Natural Resources Agency
Publication Date: Aug. 3, 2009

BCDC Bay Plan

Description: The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) is making some changes to its Bay Plan, taking climate change into account. SCVWD's Ann Draper has made some comments on their proposals.
Source: San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
Publication Date: Jun 2, 2009

Water Resource Policies and Authorities Incorporating Sea-Level Change Considerations in Civil Works Programs

Description: Army Corps' policy, July 2009, circular no. 1165-2-211 stipulated that impacts to coastal and estuarine zones caused by sea-level change must be considered in all phases of Civil Works program.
Source: United States. Army Corps of Engineers
Publication Date: Jul 1, 2009

Projects/Programs of Interest

Latest Reports

All reports on sea level rise

Sea Level Rise Scenarios

The table below is sorted from higher estimates to lower ones. Mouse over estimates to read longer descriptions of each projection. Printer-friendly version

Estimate (inches) Agency Report (Year) Source of Information Note
2050 2100
low high low high
    31.5 78.8 n/a Pfeffer, W. T., et al., Kinetic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise (2008) Original research  
    18.0 60.0 BCDC Sea Level Rise: Predications and Implications for SF Bay, p. 15 (1988) National Research Council. Responding to Changes in Sea Level (1987)  
    19.7 59.1 n/a Rohling, E. J. High rates of sea-level rise during the last interglacial period (2007) Original research  
5.9 23.6 19.7 59.1 US Army Corps of Engineers Planning for Sea Level Rise: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Policy (2002) National Research Council. Responding to Changes in Sea Level (1987) This is the basis for the current Shoreline study
    19.7 59.1 US Army Corps of Engineers Water Resource Policies and Authorities Incorporating Sea-Level Change Considerations in Civil Works Programs (2009) IPCC 2007; NRC 1987  
    40.2 57.1 California Climate Change Center/Pacific Institute Heberger, M., et al. The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast (2009) Based on Cayan, et al., 2006; Rahmstorf 2007; Cayan, et al. 2009  
    19.7 55.2 CALFED Bay-Delta Program Sea Level Rise and Delta Planning (Independent Science Board) (2007) Recent empirical models after IPCC 2007  
    19.7 55.2 n/a Rahmstorf, S., A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise (2007) Original research  
    7.1 55.2 USGS Report of workshop in Menlo Park (2008) IPCC 2007; Rahmstorf 2007  
11.8 17.7 23.6 55.2 California Climate Change Center Cayan, D., et al., Climate Change Scenarios and Sea Level Rise Estimates for the California 2008 Climate Change Scenarios Assessment (2009) Rahmstorf 2007; other sources  
      55.2 USGS Knowles, N. Projecting Vulnerability to Inundation Due to Sea Level Rise in the San Francisco Bay and Delta (2008) Community Climate System Model using A2 emission scenario  
3.2 16.2 7.9 55.2 DWR Technical Memorandum: Delta Risk Management Strategy. . . , p. 13 (2007) IPCC 2001, Rahmstorf 2007, extrapolation  
      55.0 Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force Letter to Governor, March 24, 2008 (2008) CalFed Independent Science Board Assumption for strategic plan; asks that Governor issue an executive order with estimates of sea level rise for 2050 and 2100
  16.0   55.0 BCDC Living with a Rising Bay: Vulnerability and Adaptation in San Francisco Bay and on its Shoreline (2009) Cayan, et al. 2009; Rahmstorf 2007  
      54.8 California Climate Change Center Knowles, N. Potential Inundation Due to Rising Sea Levels in the San Francisco Bay Region (2009) Cayan, et al. 2009; Cayan, et al. 2008  
    35.5 51.2 n/a Grinsted, A., et al., Reconstructing sea level from paleo and projected temperatures 200 to 2100AD (2009) Original research  
  16.5   39.4 BCDC Analysis of a Tidal Barrage at the Golden Gate (2007)    
    19.7 39.4 International Scientific Congress on Climate Change Rising sea levels set to have major impacts around the world (2009) Research presented at the conference  
    18.5 39.4 n/a Horton, et al., Sea level rise projections for current generation CGCMs . . ., Geophysical Research Letters 35 (2008) Original research  
    3.9 39.4 BCDC BCDC Climate Change Planning Project (2007) IPCC and Climate Action Team "Sea level rise models indicate that a 30 cm (11.8 inch) rise in sea level would shift the 100-year storm surge-induced flood event to once every 10 years."
    5.9 37.4 USGS National Assessment of Coastal Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise: Preliminary Results for the US Pacific Coast (2000) IPCC 1995 Old report
  12.0   36.0 Calif. Coastal Commission Overview of Sea Level Rise and Some Implications. . . , p. 12 (2001) EPA, Titus and Narayanan 1995  
    5.1 35.1 Calif. Climate Change Ctr. Scenarios of Climate Change in California: An Overview, p. 10 (2006) Cayan, et al.  
    22.0 35.0 Calif. Climate Change Ctr. Our Changing Climate, p. 12-13 (2006)    
    22.0 35.0 Calif. Ocean Protection Council Resolution on Climate Change (2007) Our Changing Climate  
    3.6 34.8 DWR Progress on Incorporating Climate Change. . . (2006) Based on IPCC 2001  
    4.0 33.0 Governor's Climate Action Team Governor's Climate Action Team Report (2006) Based on Cayan, et al., 2006  
    2.8 32.3 n/a Siddall, M., et al. Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level change (2009) Original research  
    7.9 31.5 USGS Projecting Inundation Due to Sea Level Rise in the SF Bay and Delta (2006) Knowles (USGS)  
    7.1 31.1 US EPA Future Sea Level Changes (2007) IPCC 2007  
2.4 12.6 3.9 28.4 Calif. Climate Change Ctr. Projecting Future Sea Level, p. 5 (2006) Cayan, et al. Data on waves and storm surges, too
    4.3 28.4 n/a Cayan, D., et al., Climate Change Projections of Sea Level Extremes Along the California Coast, Climatic Change 87 (suppl. 1) (2008) Original research  
      24.0 State of Maine Wetlands and Climate Change webcast, May 13, 3008 (2008)    
    7.1 23.2 IPCC Report of Working Group 1: Summary for Policymakers, p. 13 (2007)   Does not include ice flows, which could increase the upper number by 10-20 cm (4-8 in.). See RealClimate.org
    7.1 23.2 IPCC Technical Paper on Climate Change and Water, p. 37 (2008)    
      18.9 USGS Coastal Vulnerability Assessment of GGNRA to Seal-Level Rise (2005) IPCC 2001  
    13.4 15.0 NOAA National Marine Fisheries Viability Criteria for Steelhead of S. Calif., p. 20 (2007) Raper and Braithwaite, 2006  
    11.0 13.4 n/a Church, J. and N. White. A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise (2006) Original research  

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Links on these pages go to sites of interest to the staff of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Listing a site on these pages does not constitute an endorsement by the District.

Created and maintained by Bob Teeter, District Librarian

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