Planning for coastal resilience in response to climate change requires a firm grounding in science, but the constant evolution of climate science can pose challenges for practitioners. Reflecting this, a recent global study showed that the use of sea level rise projections among practitioners is somewhat chaotic and can be wildly different from place to place.
The regular Assessment Reports of the IPCC are a great example of a state-of-the-art summary of the science at a given point in time but can be a source of confusion for coastal resilience practitioners. Representatives from the NASA Sea Level Change Team (N-SLCT) and the Practitioner Exchange for Effective Response to SeaLevel Rise (PEERS) provided a deep dive into the outputs of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). In this group discussion, Dr. Ben Hamlington (N-SLCT) and Mr. David Behar (San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and Chair of PEERS) shared the approach they have developed to translate AR6 for practitioner consideration.