Sources of UK maps adjusted for sea-level rises?

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Sources of UK maps adjusted for sea-level rises?

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Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 10:16 am Post subject: Sources of UK maps adjusted for sea-level rises?
Does anyone know of any sources of maps for how the UK would look under the various scenarios for global warming and sea-level rises? Peter.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 11:10 am Post subject:

Er, no!

I think the standard approach is just to redraw the coast at say the 2m contour... which can be a bit misleading. (I know there's quite a lot of East Anglia below sea level now... never mind the Zuider Zee ) quite apart from any local effects.
So future coasts may be determined by the expenditure on coastal protection measures, raising sea walls and the like. Which brings in a cost/benefit analysis. You can bet London would be more *economically* worth protecting than, say Lincolnshire fields...

So it ain't a simple matter of contour lines!

I understand the current forecast to be rather less than 1 metre in the next 75 years. A rate at which *short* sea walls could well be built up, but casts doubt on the viability of protecting long stretches of coast around "low value" land.
IMHO its as much down to economics and political will (hard to forecast accurately), as it is to physical geography (redrawing contour lines)...

Here's a link of interest, but only tangential reference!
https://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/JRD/SAT/SeaLevel/SeaLevel.htm

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 11:22 am Post subject:
TD's mum has some sort of printouts I think she got on the environment agency site about projected levels ; I really don't know much about them though. I can ask...

ken69

Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 316
Location: Norfolk

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 11:42 am Post subject: flood maps
Something here, havn't read it yet.... www.environment-agency.gov.uk/maps/info/floodmaps/

Blue Peter

Joined: 21 Mar 2005
Posts: 2400
Location: Milton Keynes

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 11:52 am Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

TD's mum has some sort of printouts I think she got on the environment agency site about projected levels ; I really don't know much about them though. I can ask...

Only if it's not any trouble. I take it that the flood maps on the Environment Agency site represent current knowledge and not projected estimates,

Peter.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 12:03 pm Post subject:

My Southampton Uni link concerns (I think!) the influence of atmospheric pressure on sealevel. And how the "North Atlantic Oscillation" thus impacts sealevels.
And global warming is likely to change the NAO, resulting in localised changes in the change in sealevel, if you see what I mean!
Here's something about the NAO, (our local El Nino), and cold/mild winters...
https://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/nao.html
which was news to me...

hils

Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 568
Location: Nottingham

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 05 1:41 pm Post subject:
Just looked up where I#m gonna be in Lincolnshire - the place is there already though (sorry been brain washed by daughter!) Anyhow according to the map our fields are totally ok but the ones on the other side of the lane aren't! I don't know if this map is accurate because our field floods every winter and the ones on the other side of the lane don't...

karl

Joined: 10 Aug 2005
Posts: 9
Location: Nottingham UK

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 05 12:38 pm Post subject: basic maps
hi there are very basic maps at the following link https://www.benfieldhrc.org/climate_change/sea_level_rise/sea_level_rise.htm cheers Karl

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Wed Aug 10, 05 3:29 pm Post subject:

Hi karl, and welcome to the site.

I'd guess those are exactly the maps Peter was looking for. Thanks!

The notes suggest a rise of less than 50cm in the next 75 years, unless one of the big ice sheets melts catastrophically quickly.
And the most risky one is given a 1 in 20 chance of melting within 200 years - giving a 7m rise.
And even with that, the major *areas* affected are the Fens, Romney Marsh and the Trent valley. Yes, there are places all round the 'coast' that would be affected, Selsey Bill, Bridgewater, Thanet becoming an "isle" again...
I suspect that London would be unquestionably protected against such a rise, but I'm less sure about Romney Marsh (Dungeness nuclear power stations?) or the Fens.

Another aspect is river drainage. Direct estuary effects aside, I suspect that a whole new bunch of places would be susceptible to "the Lewis effect" where a river in spate meets a high tide...
And then there's the questions of erosion of thee new coast and those areas newly susceptible to occasional tidal and storm flooding...

thos

Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 1139
Location: Jauche, Duchy of Brabant (Bourgogne-ci) and Charolles, Duchy of Burgundy (Bourgogne-�a)

Posted: Thu Aug 11, 05 7:36 am Post subject:

As the graphics show, so long as we don't completely lose the ice caps, global warming will have only a marginal affect on sea levels. Concern over sea levels is really a red herring and detracts from the more important GW affects.

There has always been flooding, but the frequency and seriousness of floods has been exacerbated by

1. the loss of the flood plains to agriculture and

2. the building of housing estates on nice flat land

i.e. the best place to store rainwater is in the fields.

Where GW is of concern here is its effects on rainfall (average, peak, variation and seasonality).

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