Articles | Volume 5-opsr
https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-11-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-11-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
02 Jun 2025
| OPSR | Chapter 5.2
| 02 Jun 2025 | OPSR | Chapter 5.2
Numerical models for monitoring and forecasting sea level: a short description of present status
Mercator Ocean International, Toulouse, France
Begoña Pérez Gómez
Puertos del Estado, Madrid, Spain
Pascal Matte
Meteorological Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Québec, QC, Canada
Related authors
Fabrice Hernandez, Marcos Garcia Sotillo, and Angélique Melet
State Planet, 5-opsr, 17, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-17-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-17-2025, 2025
Short summary
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An historical review over the last 3 decades on intercomparison projects of ocean numerical reanalysis or forecast is first proposed. From this, main issues and lessons learned are discussed in order to propose an overview of best practices and key considerations to facilitate intercomparison activities in operational oceanography.
Joanna Staneva, Angelique Melet, Jennifer Veitch, and Pascal Matte
State Planet, 5-opsr, 4, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-4-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-4-2025, 2025
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Coastal services are essential to society, requiring accurate prediction of ocean variables in complex, high-resolution environments. This paper outlines key aspects of coastal modelling and emphasizes the importance of capturing nonlinear interactions and feedbacks. Advances in coastal modelling, observational integration, and predictive skills are highlighted as being vital for supporting sustainability and strengthening climate resilience.
Alisée A. Chaigneau, Angélique Melet, Aurore Voldoire, Maialen Irazoqui Apecechea, Guillaume Reffray, Stéphane Law-Chune, and Lotfi Aouf
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4031–4048, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4031-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4031-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Climate-change-induced sea level rise increases the frequency of extreme sea levels. We analyze projected changes in extreme sea levels for western European coasts produced with high-resolution models (∼ 6 km). Unlike commonly used coarse-scale global climate models, this approach allows us to simulate key processes driving coastal sea level variations, such as long-term sea level rise, tides, storm surges induced by low atmospheric surface pressure and winds, waves, and their interactions.
Angélique Melet, Roderik van de Wal, Angel Amores, Arne Arns, Alisée A. Chaigneau, Irina Dinu, Ivan D. Haigh, Tim H. J. Hermans, Piero Lionello, Marta Marcos, H. E. Markus Meier, Benoit Meyssignac, Matthew D. Palmer, Ronja Reese, Matthew J. R. Simpson, and Aimée B. A. Slangen
State Planet, 3-slre1, 4, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-4-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-4-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The EU Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise’s Assessment Report strives to synthesize the current scientific knowledge on sea level rise and its impacts across local, national, and EU scales to support evidence-based policy and decision-making, primarily targeting coastal areas. This paper complements IPCC reports by documenting the state of knowledge of observed and 21st century projected changes in mean and extreme sea levels with more regional information for EU seas as scoped with stakeholders.
Roderik van de Wal, Angélique Melet, Debora Bellafiore, Paula Camus, Christian Ferrarin, Gualbert Oude Essink, Ivan D. Haigh, Piero Lionello, Arjen Luijendijk, Alexandra Toimil, Joanna Staneva, and Michalis Vousdoukas
State Planet, 3-slre1, 5, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-5-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-5-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Sea level rise has major impacts in Europe, which vary from place to place and in time, depending on the source of the impacts. Flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion lead, via different pathways, to various consequences for coastal regions across Europe. This causes damage to assets, the environment, and people for all three categories of impacts discussed in this paper. The paper provides an overview of the various impacts in Europe.
Bart van den Hurk, Nadia Pinardi, Alexander Bisaro, Giulia Galluccio, José A. Jiménez, Kate Larkin, Angélique Melet, Lavinia Giulia Pomarico, Kristin Richter, Kanika Singh, Roderik van de Wal, and Gundula Winter
State Planet, 3-slre1, 1, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-1-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-1-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Summary for Policymakers compiles findings from “Sea Level Rise in Europe: 1st Assessment Report of the Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise”. It covers knowledge gaps, observations, projections, impacts, adaptation measures, decision-making principles, and governance challenges. It provides information for each European basin (Mediterranean, Black Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Atlantic, and Arctic) and aims to assist policymakers in enhancing the preparedness of European coasts for sea level rise.
Stefania A. Ciliberti, Enrique Alvarez Fanjul, Jay Pearlman, Kirsten Wilmer-Becker, Pierre Bahurel, Fabrice Ardhuin, Alain Arnaud, Mike Bell, Segolene Berthou, Laurent Bertino, Arthur Capet, Eric Chassignet, Stefano Ciavatta, Mauro Cirano, Emanuela Clementi, Gianpiero Cossarini, Gianpaolo Coro, Stuart Corney, Fraser Davidson, Marie Drevillon, Yann Drillet, Renaud Dussurget, Ghada El Serafy, Katja Fennel, Marcos Garcia Sotillo, Patrick Heimbach, Fabrice Hernandez, Patrick Hogan, Ibrahim Hoteit, Sudheer Joseph, Simon Josey, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Simone Libralato, Marco Mancini, Pascal Matte, Angelique Melet, Yasumasa Miyazawa, Andrew M. Moore, Antonio Novellino, Andrew Porter, Heather Regan, Laia Romero, Andreas Schiller, John Siddorn, Joanna Staneva, Cecile Thomas-Courcoux, Marina Tonani, Jose Maria Garcia-Valdecasas, Jennifer Veitch, Karina von Schuckmann, Liying Wan, John Wilkin, and Romane Zufic
State Planet, 1-osr7, 2, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-1-osr7-2-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-1-osr7-2-2023, 2023
Alisée A. Chaigneau, Stéphane Law-Chune, Angélique Melet, Aurore Voldoire, Guillaume Reffray, and Lotfi Aouf
Ocean Sci., 19, 1123–1143, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1123-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1123-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Wind waves and swells are major drivers of coastal environment changes and can drive coastal marine hazards such as coastal flooding. In this paper, by using numerical modeling along the European Atlantic coastline, we assess how present and future wave characteristics are impacted by sea level changes. For example, at the end of the century under the SSP5-8.5 climate change scenario, extreme significant wave heights are higher by up to +40 % due to the effect of tides and mean sea level rise.
Alisée A. Chaigneau, Guillaume Reffray, Aurore Voldoire, and Angélique Melet
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2035–2062, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2035-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2035-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Climate-change-induced sea level rise is a major threat for coastal and low-lying regions. Projections of coastal sea level changes are thus of great interest for coastal risk assessment and have significantly developed in recent years. In this paper, the objective is to provide high-resolution (6 km) projections of sea level changes in the northeastern Atlantic region bordering western Europe. For that purpose, a regional model is used to refine existing coarse global projections.
Pascal Matte, John Wilkin, and Joanna Staneva
State Planet, 5-opsr, 19, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-19-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-19-2025, 2025
Short summary
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Rivers, vital to the Earth's system, connect the ocean with the land, governing hydrological and biogeochemical contributions and influencing processes like upwelling and mixing. This paper reviews methods to represent river runoff in operational ocean forecasting systems, from coarse-resolution models to coastal coupling approaches. It discusses river data sources and examines how river forcing is treated in global to coastal operational systems, highlighting challenges and future directions.
Marina Tonani, Eric Chassignet, Mauro Cirano, Yasumasa Miyazawa, and Begoña Pérez Gómez
State Planet, 5-opsr, 3, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-3-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-3-2025, 2025
Short summary
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This article provides an overview of the main characteristics of ocean forecast systems covering a limited region of the ocean. Their main components are described, as well as the spatial and temporal scales they resolve. The oceanic variables that these systems are able to predict are also explained. An overview of the main forecasting systems currently in operation is also provided.
Fabrice Hernandez, Marcos Garcia Sotillo, and Angélique Melet
State Planet, 5-opsr, 17, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-17-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-17-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
An historical review over the last 3 decades on intercomparison projects of ocean numerical reanalysis or forecast is first proposed. From this, main issues and lessons learned are discussed in order to propose an overview of best practices and key considerations to facilitate intercomparison activities in operational oceanography.
Joanna Staneva, Angelique Melet, Jennifer Veitch, and Pascal Matte
State Planet, 5-opsr, 4, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-4-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-5-opsr-4-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Coastal services are essential to society, requiring accurate prediction of ocean variables in complex, high-resolution environments. This paper outlines key aspects of coastal modelling and emphasizes the importance of capturing nonlinear interactions and feedbacks. Advances in coastal modelling, observational integration, and predictive skills are highlighted as being vital for supporting sustainability and strengthening climate resilience.
Alisée A. Chaigneau, Angélique Melet, Aurore Voldoire, Maialen Irazoqui Apecechea, Guillaume Reffray, Stéphane Law-Chune, and Lotfi Aouf
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 4031–4048, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4031-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-4031-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Climate-change-induced sea level rise increases the frequency of extreme sea levels. We analyze projected changes in extreme sea levels for western European coasts produced with high-resolution models (∼ 6 km). Unlike commonly used coarse-scale global climate models, this approach allows us to simulate key processes driving coastal sea level variations, such as long-term sea level rise, tides, storm surges induced by low atmospheric surface pressure and winds, waves, and their interactions.
Angélique Melet, Roderik van de Wal, Angel Amores, Arne Arns, Alisée A. Chaigneau, Irina Dinu, Ivan D. Haigh, Tim H. J. Hermans, Piero Lionello, Marta Marcos, H. E. Markus Meier, Benoit Meyssignac, Matthew D. Palmer, Ronja Reese, Matthew J. R. Simpson, and Aimée B. A. Slangen
State Planet, 3-slre1, 4, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-4-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-4-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The EU Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise’s Assessment Report strives to synthesize the current scientific knowledge on sea level rise and its impacts across local, national, and EU scales to support evidence-based policy and decision-making, primarily targeting coastal areas. This paper complements IPCC reports by documenting the state of knowledge of observed and 21st century projected changes in mean and extreme sea levels with more regional information for EU seas as scoped with stakeholders.
Alexander Bisaro, Giulia Galluccio, Elisa Fiorini Beckhauser, Fulvio Biddau, Ruben David, Floortje d'Hont, Antonio Góngora Zurro, Gonéri Le Cozannet, Sadie McEvoy, Begoña Pérez Gómez, Claudia Romagnoli, Eugenio Sini, and Jill Slinger
State Planet, 3-slre1, 7, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-7-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-7-2024, 2024
Short summary
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This paper assesses coastal adaptation governance by examining socio-economic and political contexts, reviewing policy frameworks, and identifying challenges. Results show that regional and basin-scale frameworks lack sea level rise provisions, but significant national progress is observed. The main governance challenges are time horizons and uncertainty, coordination, and social vulnerability. These, however, can be addressed if flexible planning and nature-based solutions are implemented.
Roderik van de Wal, Angélique Melet, Debora Bellafiore, Paula Camus, Christian Ferrarin, Gualbert Oude Essink, Ivan D. Haigh, Piero Lionello, Arjen Luijendijk, Alexandra Toimil, Joanna Staneva, and Michalis Vousdoukas
State Planet, 3-slre1, 5, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-5-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-5-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Sea level rise has major impacts in Europe, which vary from place to place and in time, depending on the source of the impacts. Flooding, erosion, and saltwater intrusion lead, via different pathways, to various consequences for coastal regions across Europe. This causes damage to assets, the environment, and people for all three categories of impacts discussed in this paper. The paper provides an overview of the various impacts in Europe.
Bart van den Hurk, Nadia Pinardi, Alexander Bisaro, Giulia Galluccio, José A. Jiménez, Kate Larkin, Angélique Melet, Lavinia Giulia Pomarico, Kristin Richter, Kanika Singh, Roderik van de Wal, and Gundula Winter
State Planet, 3-slre1, 1, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-1-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-3-slre1-1-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The Summary for Policymakers compiles findings from “Sea Level Rise in Europe: 1st Assessment Report of the Knowledge Hub on Sea Level Rise”. It covers knowledge gaps, observations, projections, impacts, adaptation measures, decision-making principles, and governance challenges. It provides information for each European basin (Mediterranean, Black Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea, Atlantic, and Arctic) and aims to assist policymakers in enhancing the preparedness of European coasts for sea level rise.
Pablo Lorente, Marta de Alfonso, Pilar Gil, Fernando Manzano, Anna Magdalena Matulka, Begoña Pérez-Gómez, Susana Pérez-Rubio, and M. Isabel Ruiz
State Planet, 4-osr8, 19, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-4-osr8-19-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-4-osr8-19-2024, 2024
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Over recent decades, extreme weather events have attracted growing public concern due to their widespread impact on the environment and human well-being. Their comprehensive monitoring is crucial to adopt prevention strategies and reduce coastal vulnerability. In this work, the record-breaking wave event that hit Melilla harbour (SW Mediterranean Sea) during early April 2022 was investigated to elucidate the meteorological drivers and evaluate the energetic response of Melilla harbour basins.
Jue Lin-Ye, Begoña Pérez Gómez, Alejandro Gallardo, Fernando Manzano, Marta de Alfonso, Elizabeth Bradshaw, and Angela Hibbert
Ocean Sci., 19, 1743–1751, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1743-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1743-2023, 2023
Short summary
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The historical sea level measurements in the Copernicus Marine Service have been machine flagged and visually inspected. The existing software for the near-real-time product has been adapted. The new product was launched in November of 2022 and is readily available to the general public.
Stefania A. Ciliberti, Enrique Alvarez Fanjul, Jay Pearlman, Kirsten Wilmer-Becker, Pierre Bahurel, Fabrice Ardhuin, Alain Arnaud, Mike Bell, Segolene Berthou, Laurent Bertino, Arthur Capet, Eric Chassignet, Stefano Ciavatta, Mauro Cirano, Emanuela Clementi, Gianpiero Cossarini, Gianpaolo Coro, Stuart Corney, Fraser Davidson, Marie Drevillon, Yann Drillet, Renaud Dussurget, Ghada El Serafy, Katja Fennel, Marcos Garcia Sotillo, Patrick Heimbach, Fabrice Hernandez, Patrick Hogan, Ibrahim Hoteit, Sudheer Joseph, Simon Josey, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Simone Libralato, Marco Mancini, Pascal Matte, Angelique Melet, Yasumasa Miyazawa, Andrew M. Moore, Antonio Novellino, Andrew Porter, Heather Regan, Laia Romero, Andreas Schiller, John Siddorn, Joanna Staneva, Cecile Thomas-Courcoux, Marina Tonani, Jose Maria Garcia-Valdecasas, Jennifer Veitch, Karina von Schuckmann, Liying Wan, John Wilkin, and Romane Zufic
State Planet, 1-osr7, 2, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-1-osr7-2-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/sp-1-osr7-2-2023, 2023
Alisée A. Chaigneau, Stéphane Law-Chune, Angélique Melet, Aurore Voldoire, Guillaume Reffray, and Lotfi Aouf
Ocean Sci., 19, 1123–1143, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1123-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-19-1123-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Wind waves and swells are major drivers of coastal environment changes and can drive coastal marine hazards such as coastal flooding. In this paper, by using numerical modeling along the European Atlantic coastline, we assess how present and future wave characteristics are impacted by sea level changes. For example, at the end of the century under the SSP5-8.5 climate change scenario, extreme significant wave heights are higher by up to +40 % due to the effect of tides and mean sea level rise.
Begoña Pérez Gómez, Ivica Vilibić, Jadranka Šepić, Iva Međugorac, Matjaž Ličer, Laurent Testut, Claire Fraboul, Marta Marcos, Hassen Abdellaoui, Enrique Álvarez Fanjul, Darko Barbalić, Benjamín Casas, Antonio Castaño-Tierno, Srđan Čupić, Aldo Drago, María Angeles Fraile, Daniele A. Galliano, Adam Gauci, Branislav Gloginja, Víctor Martín Guijarro, Maja Jeromel, Marcos Larrad Revuelto, Ayah Lazar, Ibrahim Haktan Keskin, Igor Medvedev, Abdelkader Menassri, Mohamed Aïssa Meslem, Hrvoje Mihanović, Sara Morucci, Dragos Niculescu, José Manuel Quijano de Benito, Josep Pascual, Atanas Palazov, Marco Picone, Fabio Raicich, Mohamed Said, Jordi Salat, Erdinc Sezen, Mehmet Simav, Georgios Sylaios, Elena Tel, Joaquín Tintoré, Klodian Zaimi, and George Zodiatis
Ocean Sci., 18, 997–1053, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-997-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/os-18-997-2022, 2022
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This description and mapping of coastal sea level monitoring networks in the Mediterranean and Black seas reveals the existence of 240 presently operational tide gauges. Information is provided about the type of sensor, time sampling, data availability, and ancillary measurements. An assessment of the fit-for-purpose status of the network is also included, along with recommendations to mitigate existing bottlenecks and improve the network, in a context of sea level rise and increasing extremes.
Alisée A. Chaigneau, Guillaume Reffray, Aurore Voldoire, and Angélique Melet
Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 2035–2062, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2035-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-2035-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Climate-change-induced sea level rise is a major threat for coastal and low-lying regions. Projections of coastal sea level changes are thus of great interest for coastal risk assessment and have significantly developed in recent years. In this paper, the objective is to provide high-resolution (6 km) projections of sea level changes in the northeastern Atlantic region bordering western Europe. For that purpose, a regional model is used to refine existing coarse global projections.
Georg Umgiesser, Marco Bajo, Christian Ferrarin, Andrea Cucco, Piero Lionello, Davide Zanchettin, Alvise Papa, Alessandro Tosoni, Maurizio Ferla, Elisa Coraci, Sara Morucci, Franco Crosato, Andrea Bonometto, Andrea Valentini, Mirko Orlić, Ivan D. Haigh, Jacob Woge Nielsen, Xavier Bertin, André Bustorff Fortunato, Begoña Pérez Gómez, Enrique Alvarez Fanjul, Denis Paradis, Didier Jourdan, Audrey Pasquet, Baptiste Mourre, Joaquín Tintoré, and Robert J. Nicholls
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 2679–2704, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2679-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-2679-2021, 2021
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The city of Venice relies crucially on a good storm surge forecast to protect its population and cultural heritage. In this paper, we provide a state-of-the-art review of storm surge forecasting, starting from examples in Europe and focusing on the Adriatic Sea and the Lagoon of Venice. We discuss the physics of storm surge, as well as the particular aspects of Venice and new techniques in storm surge modeling. We also give recommendations on what a future forecasting system should look like.
Huayang Cai, Ping Zhang, Erwan Garel, Pascal Matte, Shuai Hu, Feng Liu, and Qingshu Yang
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1871–1889, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-1871-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-1871-2020, 2020
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Understanding the morphological changes in estuaries due to natural processes and human interventions is especially important with regard to sustainable water management and ecological impacts on the estuarine environment. In this contribution, we explore the morphological evolution in tide-dominated estuaries by means of a novel analytical approach using the observed water levels along the channel. The method could serve as a useful tool to understand the evolution of estuarine morphology.
B. Pérez, A. Payo, D. López, P. L. Woodworth, and E. Alvarez Fanjul
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 14, 589–610, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-14-589-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-14-589-2014, 2014
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Short summary
Forecasting the sea level is crucial for supporting coastal management through early warning systems and for adopting adaptation strategies to mitigate climate change impacts. We provide here an overview on models commonly used for sea level forecasting, which can be based on storm surge models or ocean circulation ones, integrated on structured or unstructured grids, including an outlook on new approaches based on ensemble methods.
Forecasting the sea level is crucial for supporting coastal management through early warning...
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