Environ. Res. Lett. 10 (2015) 064011 I Takayabu et al Figure 6. Maximum water surface elevation predicted by using the SuWAT model (domain D3). Results of experiment m02 (1001) in (a) ALL and (b) NAT. The coloured dots around the coastline show inundation data obtained by a field survey. difference in the cyclone intensity. The difference of maximum surge height between NAT and ALL is 0.47 m and amplification of surge height is much larger than surface wind amplification due to nonlinear characteristics of momentum transfer between atmospheric and ocean interface. 4. Influence of extreme sea level change within these 150 years There are many studies of historical sea level rise (IPCC-AR5, WGI, chapter 13). For example, Church and White (2011) investigate sea level change from the late 19th to the early 21st century. Although there were only a few tide gauges that operated in the middle 19th century, their papers figure 7 shows some sea level change records estimation from several data sources. 7 From their figure, c.a. 0.25–0.30 m sea level rise is found and other studies also show similar value around this area if we exclude local land subsidence. Wind driven circulation or ENSO signal may also produce sea level change locally, but as shown in Woodworth et al (2008), the time scale caused by such ocean circulation is much shorter than 150 years. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report also discusses the vulnerability of coastal regions to other physical processes, such as storm surges at extreme sea level. Changes in the severity of storm surges are some of the examples of how climate change affects coastal regions, but it is difficult to make an impact assessment at particular regions quantitatively. In our paper, the storm surge height increases at most 0.50 m between NAT and ALL experiments, caused by the intensification of the typhoon which is larger than historical sea level rise (estimated as 0.25–0.30 m).