A pressing challenge for coastal engineers is to incorporate climate change considerations into coastal design in a robust, quantitative way.

Global circulation models (GCMs) offer reanalyses, hindcasts and forecasts of atmospheric pressure, winds and precipitation - quantities fundamental to determining the extreme water levels and wave heights required for design.

This present contribution summarises a recent investigation of the applicability of GCMs within coastal engineering assessments of the temperate eastern Australian coast.

20 year ARI 24 hour values are used to quantify GCM performance for 20th century climate in comparison with recorded data as well as to compare changes from present to future climate.
GCM data was sourced from seven climate models of those used within the 4th Assessment Report (AR-4).

Daily precipitation, mean surface level pressure and wind speed were extracted at ocean cells at the same latitude as observation locations.

Although 20 year ARI model precipitations are approximately a factor of 2.5 smaller in the predictive models than observed there is good comparison between observed and modelled surface pressures and winds at the 20 year ARI.

No significant changes in surface pressure and rainfall can be observed over a 100 year time horizon but a systematic decrease in surface winds is anticipated over the same period.

Models show slightly greater co-dependence of extremes in low surface pressure, winds and precipiation.

The implications for engineering design will be presented.