U.S. Sea Level Change Website

The U.S. Sea Level Change website, published in September 2024, is a multi-agency effort to provide accessible, authoritative sea-level science and education at the state, regional, and national levels. The website includes a sea-level change data explorer that illustrates past, present, and future sea level trends and impacts, including flooding. The site also hosts a comprehensive “Sea Level 101” guide that explains how sea level is defined, measured, and modeled, as well as personal impacts and actions. The website helps decision-makers and the public alike understand location-specific sea-level rise risk and impacts. Information on the U.S. Sea Level Change website is intended for the media, Congress, educators, coastal communities, decision-makers, planners, resilience professionals, and all levels of government. The website emphasizes that climate adaptation and mitigation are both critical for addressing sea-level rise.

Visualize sea-level change and flood risk over time for a particular city

The data visualized in the National Sea Level Explorer is based on the 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report from the US Global Change Research Program, and can be customized to illustrate outcomes for low to high emissions pathways out to 2150. Historical data varies by location, but is generally available for the late 20th century onwards. Visualizations are available for cities with NOAA tide gauges, as well as the contiguous United States, six subsections of the coast, subsections of the Alaskan coast, the Pacific Islands, and the Caribbean Islands. The contributing factors to sea-level change, such as thermal expansion, Antarctic ice melt, Greenlandic ice melt, and vertical land motion, are broken down. Historical observations and future predictions for sea-level change, its contributions, and resulting flooding may be downloaded as an Excel file for each selected location. Each location report also includes an explanation of how sea-level change is measured, and data sources. Short excerpts from the education portion of the website are also included, explaining future sea-level rise globally, locally, and with mitigation. Education excerpts are also provided for the relationship between sea-level rise and flooding impacts.

The Sea Level 101 resources on the U.S. Sea Level Change website consist of material on global and regional sea-level change, measurement and modelling methods, societal and infrastructure impacts, and responses to mitigate sea-level change and its impacts. Each section includes a short summary of the basics (e.g., key takeaways, term definitions, and graphics) and a “deeper dive”. The deep dives include figures and explanations from scientific publications and are aimed at more professional, experienced audiences. There are also short explainer videos from NASA and NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management. The actions section includes progress on climate action from various federal agencies. “What Can We Do?” in Sea Level 101 also outlines actions for different levels of governance, from the community, to state, to national government (as well as individual actions).

The Sea Level Change website and resources are products of the U.S. Interagency Task Force on Sea Level Change, which is a federal interagency partnership involving the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

 

Publication Date: September 23, 2024

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  • Education/training materials
  • Mapping tool
  • Modeling tool
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