EPS Colloquium – Sönke Dangendorf, Tulane University

Disentangling the causes and drivers of local sea-level changes since 1900

Coastal communities around the world are increasingly exposed to extreme events that have been exacerbated by rising sea levels. Sustainable adaptation strategies to cope with the associated threats require comprehensive understanding of past and possible future changes at a local level. Yet, many coastlines lack accurate long-term sea level observations. In this presentation, I will introduce several recent advances in reconstructing and interpreting sea level and its individual causes (e.g., Glacial Isostatic Adjustment, ice melt, and ocean expansion and circulation) at high spatial resolution back into the early 20th century that now allow to access and interpret historical sea level even in areas where observations are sparse, uncertain, or absent (e.g., Africa). I will also introduce a newly developed detection and attribution framework based on a combination of tide gauge observations, the reconstruction and historical climate model simulations that separates observed sea-level changes into individual anthropogenic and natural drivers. Our results indicate that extreme sea level events have become more intense and frequent since 1900 showing a significant imprint of anthropogenic forcing.

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Sönke Dangendorf is the Flowerree Early Career Assistant Professor in the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Dangendorf has more than 15 years of experience researching mean and extreme sea levels, ocean tides, and storm surges and their impact on coastal flooding. He previously held positions as a Research Professor (‘Akademischer Rat’) at the University of Siegen, Germany, and as an Assistant Professor for Ocean and Earth Science at the Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. Dr. Dangendorf was a contributing co-author to the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is currently a member of the NASA sea level science team. He was also co-author on the Sea-Level Rise Projections for Maryland Report in 2023. Dr. Dangendorf serves as an Editor of the Nature journal Scientific Data.