title: Future extreme sea level seesaws in the tropical Pacific.
abstract: Global mean sea levels are projected to gradually rise in response to greenhouse warming. However, on shorter time scales, modes of natural climate variability in the Pacific, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), can affect regional sea level variability and extremes, with considerable impacts on coastal ecosystems and island nations. How these shorter-term sea level fluctuations will change in association with a projected increase in extreme El Niño and its atmospheric variability remains unknown. Using present-generation coupled climate models forced with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and subtracting the effect of global mean sea level rise, we find that climate change will enhance El Niño-related sea level extremes, especially in the tropical southwestern Pacific, where very low sea level events, locally known as Taimasa, are projected to double in occurrence. Additionally, and throughout the tropical Pacific, prolonged interannual sea level inundations are also found to become more likely with greenhouse warming and increased frequency of extreme La Niña events, thus exacerbating the coastal impacts of the projected global mean sea level rise.
authors.affiliation: International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 1680 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Widlansky
authors.affiliation: International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 1680 East-West Road, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA. ; Department of Oceanography, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, 1000 Pope Road, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
authors.forename: Axel
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Timmermann
authors.affiliation: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, 107-121 Station Street, Aspendale, Victoria 3195, Australia.
authors.forename: Wenju
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cai
keywords: El Niño-Southern Oscillation; climate models; greenhouse warming; sea level variability