Human-caused sea level rise drives 21st-century worldwide water level extremes

The rate and impacts of sea level rise vary considerably around the world, but the contribution of human-caused climate change to increases in local and regional flood risks has not yet been systematically explored. Because such information is critical to local decision making, legal proceedings, and loss and damage determinations, we quantify human-caused climate change’s contributions to sea level rise at worldwide locations using budget-based and semiempirical model methods. Results show that human-caused sea level rise is quantifiable at 97% of 519 tide gauge sites and is responsible for 58% (44 to 65%) of the observed daily extreme water level exceedances over 2000–2018. On average, human-caused sea level rise has caused a near-tripling in the number of days with attributable exceedances since the 1970s.