CR 94:19-26 (2025)  -  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01748

ABSTRACT: Assessing the impact of sea level changes on airports across the present century is a pressing issue for the rapidly expanding aviation sector and, more generally, for establishing adaptation strategies. To date, these assessments have assumed that future melting of ice sheets and glaciers leads to globally uniform sea level changes. We summarize recent geophysical research that highlights the extreme geographic variability in sea level that will occur in response to such melting—a variability captured in so-called sea level fingerprints. As a case study, we present modeling predictions of sea level change to 2100 CE based on a suite of published projections of polar ice mass flux and consider the implications of these results for airports identified as being at particularly high risk from sea level rise. We conclude that this important source of sea level variability should be incorporated—together with other processes that imprint a geographic pattern on sea level (e.g. storm surges, tides, thermosteric and ocean dynamic changes)—into projections of airport risks in a warming world.

KEY WORDS: Airport flood risk · Sea level geometries · Ice sheets

Full text in pdf format

Cite this article as: Silcox F, Cederberg G, Jaeger N, Kiam L, Powell R, Stoller P, Mitrovica JX (2025) Climate and human society: adopting sea level fingerprints in next generation projections of airport flood risk. Clim Res 94:19-26. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01748 Export citation Share:    Facebook - - Bluesky - linkedIn