Sea Lvl ChangeCstl Adaptation

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Description: Why is the sea level falling in the Arctic but rising globally? Why is the sea level on the US East Coast rising twice as fast as the global mean? And what makes some communities more vulnerable to flooding than others? This course will study the physical mechanisms contributing to sea level change over space and time and introduce policy options for coastal adaptation that reduce risks for coastal communities and ecosystems. We will study paleo records, instrumental records, climate and ice sheet models, and solid Earth models in order to understand how various processes are leading to non-uniform sea level change that we observe today as well as inform future change. This course will cover a variety of coastal adaptation options and the tradeoffs of each option. Students will use tools from the course to develop a sea level model to reconstruct