The EU Environment project ended on 31 Decemner 1996. Five year CSX model runs forced by wind and pressure data from a climate model suggested that extreme surge elevations might increase substantially as a result of the doubling of CO2. An investigation
using a 40 year run (1955-1994) model hindcast showed that the natural variability of extremes estimated from 5 year sub-sets of the data (Figure 11a) was greater than and so could explain the computed difference between equivalent extremes for present and 2×CO2 scenarios (Figure 11b). Further work with longer forcing data from a climate model is required to resolve the issue.
Figure 11
Differences between a) maximum and minimum estimates of 5 year surge using subsets of the 40 year hindcast, and b) change in 5 year extreme surge from runs driven by 2×CO2 and present day met data.
Last updated: 12th May 1998. Please send comments to A.Lane@pol.ac.uk