The risk posed by rising sea levels to coastal cities is well known. Between 1900 and 2020, global sea levels have risen by 2.1cm, or 1.7mm each year, accelerating to 3.3mm a year since 1993. Depending on which temperature change scenario you use, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2021 that they will rise by a further 44-102cm by 2100. Now a positive link with extreme storms has been found. In Europe, work led by the UK's National Oceanography Centre has found that the impact of storm surges in Europe has matched sea level rises consistently since 1960, if not earlier. This suggests that current coastal defence strategies may not be able to meet their combined impact in the future. Unfortunately, things get worse from here. Advances in satellite monitoring systems and machine-based leaning are transforming our appreciation about changes in groundwater levels. NATO's GRACE/GRACE-FO satellites measure gravity to indicate groundwater volumes while Sentinel-i's InSAR satellite links changes between groundwater and changes in the earth's surface. These have been assisted by deep-learning approaches using artificial neural networks to track changes detected at land-based monitoring stations.
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