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Sea Level Impacts

Extreme events

• Introduction
• Fremantle
• Fort Denison

Introduction

As mean sea level rises, extreme events of a given height tend to become more frequent, as shown schematically in the following figure:

We quantify the occurrence of such events by the Return Period or Average Recurrence Interval, which is the average time between events. The effect of sea level rise during the 20th century is indicated in the following figures, which shows the change of Average Recurrence Interval from the first half of the century to the second, at Fort Denison and Fremantle. It can be seen that the Average Recurrence Interval for these extremes was reduced by a factor or around three at both sites, so that an extreme that used to occur, say, every three years now occurs every one year.

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Fremantle

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Fort Denison

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Website owner: Neil White | Last modified 22/04/08

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