Future sea level rise poses a high risk to the rapidly increasing population in many coastal location. Unlike heat waves, droughts, storms and river floods, which have severe impacts on local to regional scales, a significant sea level rise will have impacts at the global scales. A rapid sea level rise caused be a collapse of parts of the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets would result in massive migration, catastrophic loss of production capabilities and coastal real estate, and unprecedented pollution of the ocean. It is hard to imaging how humanity would cope with such a massive global disaster impacting social, economic and ecological systems at an unprecedented scale.

There is an urgent need for a better assessment of the full range of plausible sea level rise trajectories at local and regional scales to enable responsible risk governance. The SLR VCC aims for a comprehensive overview of recent advances in observations of sea level changes from local to global scales as well as the driving processes for sea level changes from decadal to century time scales. Forecasting decadal sea level changes at local and regional scales is an urgently needed services for engaged in risk governance in coastal settlements and mega cities. The SLR VCC will consider advances in modeling to enable such a forecasting. Scenario studies can help to establishing the probability density function of future sea level rise from local to global scales, which is a crucial input for thorough risk assessments. Assessing the potential impacts of sea level changes on coastal areas is another central input for risk governance.

If you are engaged in sea level related research or a societal stakeholder engaged in one way or another in risk governance related to sea level rise, please, do join this VCC. We need you!