< back

Sea level rise modeling

Global sea level rise (SLR) will likely impose substantial economic costs to coastal communities worldwide, but characterizing its global impact remains challenging. In this project, we (the Climate Impact Lab) present a modular open-source platform (pyCIAM) that estimates adaptation and net SLR costs for nearly 10,000 global coastline segments and administrative regions. Our approach accounts both for uncertainty in the magnitude of global SLR and spatial variability in local relative sea level rise. We evaluate costs across 110 possible  trajectories in the 21st century and find annual global SLR costs of $180-200 billion in 2100 assuming optimal adaptation and moderate emissions. Under the highest SLR scenarios modeled, this value ranges from $400-520 billion.

(Depsky, Bolliger et al., 2023)

notable citation: US EPA Report on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases