CANUTE: The Sea Level Calculator — YRD

CANUTE: The Sea Level Calculator (904)

Steve George 1
  1. Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems CRC, Hobart, TAS, Australia

In a world of rising sea-level, coastal infrastructure will need to adapt to remain viable. Canute is an online Decision Support Tool that provides a suite of applications to quantify the impact of present-day and future sea-level scenarios on the Australian coastline. The primary impact, the magnitude of 
extreme events, is presented by either a range of statistical products, or in the form of an allowance (i.e., the amount by which the height of coastal infrastructure needs to be altered to cope with climate change). The analysis combines storm-surge modelling products with the latest IPCC AR5 climate predictions.

In addition to the still-water level, waves also have an impact on coastal regimes. An application to calculate the impact of waves on the Australian coast (in the form of setup/runup) is provided. The tool uses data from the NOAA Wavewatch III model. For soft shorelines beach recession will, in the future, be a confounding factor. Canute presents a front-end to extensive beach-recession modelling work (which moves beyond the simple Bruun rule). For Tasmania, this is augmented by an associated project (TASMARC) which monitors shoreline positions and beach profiles. Preliminary tools to calculate the financial impact of rising sea-level are also presented.

#adapt2014