Dr. Aimée Slangen

At the NIOZ Sea Level Research Centre, climatologist Aimée Slangen computes how global sea-level changes translate into effects along the coast. ‘I’m probably one of the few NIOZ researchers who never has to make fieldwork trips, because climate science is something that is mainly done behind a computer screen. For example, we receive measurements of sea levels from satellites down to an accuracy of 1 mm. Then it is a question of calculating computer scenarios. However, we cannot simply translate the scenarios for the Atlantic Ocean into those for the North Sea or the Wadden Sea, because there are many regional effects. We are now trying to calculate these with an accuracy of seven by seven kilometres.’

Sand and concrete

‘In the regional sea-level scenarios for the Wadden Sea, we need to deal with factors such as soil subsidence, sand transport, wind and waves. The scenarios for the Zeeland and South Holland Delta are different, because more coastlines are protected by concrete structures, amongst other things. Due to all these different effects, we also need to try and combine many different models into a single scenario. In doing this, we now produce calculations beyond the year 2100, because large structures like dykes and delta works are not merely built for a period of twenty years.’

Living in a bathtub

‘I am one of the five Dutch representatives for part one of the three-part assessment report, which the United Nations climate panel IPCC published in August 2021. This first part investigates the physical aspects of climate change. For example, we can see that the sea level rises due to the melting of glaciers and expansion of increasingly warm water, and that the contribution of the melting ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica continues to increase. An awful lot of water is enclosed in those ice sheets. For a rich country like the Netherlands, sea-level rise can still be accommodated for a while. But at a certain moment, we will be faced with an almost philosophical question: do we want to live in the Netherlands that is a figurative bathtub – surrounded by dykes that need to be built increasingly higher? With my research, I hope to contribute to a realistic picture of what we can expect in the coming years in our delta on the North Sea.’