Description
Sea-level rise poses significant economic threats, particularly to coastal communities, by increasing the risk of flooding and storm surges that can damage infrastructure, homes, and businesses, leading to costly repairs and insurance claims. It also threatens coastal ecosystems that are vital for fishing and tourism industries, potentially leading to job losses and reduced income. Real estate values may decline in vulnerable areas, impacting local economies and tax revenues. This product represents the future long-term risk from sea level rise globally at decadal time steps under five global mean sea level rise scenarios for the period 2020 to 2150.
Technical Description
These sea level rise risk projection products capture projected risk of decadally-averaged sea level rise exceeding the altitude of the local elevation for all locations globally. These risk maps reflect the future long-term risk from sea level rise globally at decadal time steps for five different global mean sea level rise scenarios.
These maps compare sea level rise projections developed by NOAA to a high-resolution global elevation map from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO). The spatial scale for this dataset is roughly 1.8 km/pixel and data are available for the years 2020 - 2150.
The probability (between 0-1) that decadally-averaged sea level rise exceeds local elevation at each grid point is provided for the combinations of NOAA sea level rise scenario and time horizon.
This dataset contains the following fields:
- sea_level_rise_probability: The probability that a location is subjected to sea level rise inundation for a given decade and scenario. This provides the probability that a location is under water for a given decade and scenario. This is a value between 0.0 and 1.0.
- sea_level_rise_risk_class: The sea level rise risk classification for each value. Values are integers from 1 to 5, representing the following classes: Extremely unlikely (1), Very unlikely (2), Moderately likely (3), Very likely (4), and Extremely likely (5). Data are categorized by binning sea_level_rise_probability values as follows: (1) 0 to 0.1, (2) >0.1 to <0.33, (3) 0.33 to 0.66, (4) >0.66 to <0.9, (5) 0.9 to 1.