New Sea Level Scenario Generator Software Considers Climate Change

A new software package has just been released on the World Wide Web that enables coastal zone managers, coastal zone property owners and any other people or organisations interested in coastal zone issues to create scenarios of future sea-level change at global, regional and local scales. The software is unique as it is the first of its type to provide users with the capacity to create scenarios of future sea-level anywhere in the world that take into account global, regional and local components of change.

CLIMsystems Ltd., Hamilton, New Zealand (PRWEB) April 7, 2005 -- A new software package has just been released on the World Wide Web that enables coastal zone managers, coastal zone property owners and any other people or organisations interested in coastal zone issues to create scenarios of future sea-level change at global, regional and local scales. The SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator software, found at http://www.climsystems.com/site/home/, provides an easy-to-navigate windows platform for creating a wide range of sea-level change scenarios using the latest scientific knowledge. The software is unique as it is the first of its type to provide users with the capacity to create scenarios of future sea-level anywhere in the world that take into account global, regional and local components of change.

The SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator was designed by Drs. Richard Warrick and Wei Ye of the International Global Change Institute http://www.waikato.ac.nz/igci/ of the University of Waikato http://www.waikato.ac.nz/ Hamilton, New Zealand in collaboration with Dr. Xianfu Lu of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. The SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator is part of an ongoing effort to design tools to aid decision making in a climate changed world.

The software includes options for exploring global projections of sea-level change based on the latest available Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) greenhouse-gas emission scenarios marked by fundamentally different assumptions about fossil fuel consumption, demographic change and economic structures. A total of six emission scenarios (SRES) are included in the package and they can be queried for their associated changes in temperature, sea-level rise (total), sea-level rise (thermal expansion only) and CO2 concentration as produced by the MAGICC model for IPCC. For each SRES the program produces a graph of projections from 1990 to 2100 with low, medium and high estimates.

The regional and local generation of sea-level scenarios occurs in a separate part of the program which includes a global spatial interface. The method of scenario generation is 'pattern scaling which combines the global-mean projections with regional patterns of change as produced by General Circulation models (GCMs). Users can move a cursor around a map of the worlds oceans and quickly generate scenarios of sea level change. A tabular interface also allows users to choose the latitude and longitude of a local area of interest. Again, different greenhouse-gas emission scenarios can be queried and seven different GCM patterns can be selected from. Both tabular and graphical results can be displayed and can be copied, printed or saved as csv text files.

The results generated by the SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator can be fine tuned by the incorporation of local sea-level trends (as from land moving up or down over the long term). Many local authorities have access to these trends, as derived from tide-gauge records, and they are entered into the software. No other external data is required to run the software therefore scenarios of change can be quickly and easily generated with little external support. A comprehensive step-by-step users guide is included with the software as is an overview of the methods used to derive the outputs.

The SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator is the first software release of CLIMsystems Ltd. Future software releases will include CoastCLIM which interfaces with the SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator to assist users in assessing and simulating shoreline changes on beach and dune systems. SimCLIM software is also being readied for release for assessing risk and vulnerability of a wide range of systems as a result of climate change. A trail version of the SimCLIM Sea-Level Scenario Generator can be downloaded from http://www.climsystems.com/site/downloads/. Visit http://www.climsystems.com/site/home/ for information on all CLIMsystems product developments and release dates.

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