European advances on CLImate services for coasts and SEAs (ECLISEA)

ECLISEA is a project that aims to advance coastal and marine climate science and associated services through developing innovative research of sea surface dynamics. The project is built upon the premise that the outcomes should be applicable throughout Europe. ECLISEA proposes an integral research plan that starts with assessing the needs of specific stakeholders; includes groundbreaking investigation related to mean sea level rise, storm surge, waves, total water level and coastal flooding and erosion methodologies, and ends up with the development of an on-line open prototype of a coastal climate service in Europe. Relevant issues for climate sensitive sectors in coastal areas such as the characterization and change of extreme met-ocean conditions or the assessment of uncertainties of regional historical and future mean sea level rise are considered, as well as relatively unexplored research on wind-waves and storm surge climate predictability from seasonal to decadal time scales.

The project has the following objectives:

• Development of new data and harmonized datasets by supporting homogeneous analysis and evaluation of coastal climate change research in Europe.
• Study of climate features of sea surface dynamics at a consistent European scale.
• Investigation of the complexity and uncertainties of impact models on the coastal region and shelf seas.
• Comparison of existing methods, including the development of statistical and dynamical downscalings, by demonstrating suitability and by identifying research gaps and needs.