Projecting Sea-​Level Rise: from Ice Sheets to Local Implications (PROTECT)

The ETH Zurich and WSL are part of this a large European project funded in the frame of Horizon 2020. The overarching scientific objective of PROTECT is to assess and project changes in the land-​based cryosphere with quantified uncertainties, to produce robust global, regional and local projections of SLR on a wide range of timescales. The project will place particular emphasis on the low-​probability, high impact scenarios of greatest interest to coastal planning stakeholders. A novelty in PROTECT is the strong interaction between these stakeholders and the sea-​level scientists (ranging from glaciologists to coastal impact specialists) to identify relevant risks and opportunities from global to local scales and enhance European competitiveness in the provision of climate services. The contribution of the ETH Zürich and WSL focus on the global modelling of glaciers both in the past and in the future using GloGEMflow, thus building up on our previous work and other running projects. The focus is on further model development, e.g. regarding ice-​flow dynamics and the effect of debris cover, and on a new calibration-​validation scheme making use of the full breath of glacier-​specific geodetic mass balances worldwide.