Impact of climate change-induced sea ice retreat on arctic storm surges

Canada’s Arctic coastline is significantly affected by climate change factors such as relative sea-level rise, thawing permafrost, sea ice retreat, accelerating coastal erosion and increasingly extreme wave climate (Environment Canada, 2019). These factors exacerbate the impacts of storm surges and associated coastal flooding of Arctic communities. While there have been studies studying the impact of sea ice retreat on wave climate (Casas‐Prat and Wang, 2020; Waseda et al., 2021), there have not been any studies on its effect on storm surge development. This is the first study quantifying the projected increase in storm surge hazard along the coast of the Beaufort Sea due to climate change-induced sea ice retreat and shortening of ice season duration through numerical modelling.