The Sea Level Response to External Forcings in Historical Simulations of CMIP5 Climate Models*

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (21) ◽  
pp. 8521-8539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimée B. A. Slangen ◽  
John A. Church ◽  
Xuebin Zhang ◽  
Didier P. Monselesan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Variability ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Internal Climate Variability ◽  
Level Change ◽  
External Forcings ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Global Mean

Abstract Changes in Earth’s climate are influenced by internal climate variability and external forcings, such as changes in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG), and aerosols. Although the response of surface temperature to external forcings has been studied extensively, this has not been done for sea level. Here, a range of climate model experiments for the twentieth century is used to study the response of global and regional sea level change to external climate forcings. Both the global mean thermosteric sea level and the regional dynamic sea level patterns show clear responses to anthropogenic forcings that are significantly different from internal climate variability and larger than the difference between models driven by the same external forcing. The regional sea level patterns are directly related to changes in surface winds in response to the external forcings. The spread between different realizations of the same model experiment is consistent with internal climate variability derived from preindustrial control simulations. The spread between the different models is larger than the internal variability, mainly in regions with large sea level responses. Although the sea level responses to GHG and anthropogenic aerosol forcing oppose each other in the global mean, there are differences on a regional scale, offering opportunities for distinguishing between these two forcings in observed sea level change.

scholarly journals Reconciling global mean and regional sea level change in projections and observations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinping Wang ◽  
John A. Church ◽  
Xuebin Zhang ◽  
Xianyao Chen
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Tide Gauge ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Global Network ◽  
Weighted Mean ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Global Mean ◽  
Regional Sea Level Change

AbstractThe ability of climate models to simulate 20th century global mean sea level (GMSL) and regional sea-level change has been demonstrated. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) sea-level projections have not been rigorously evaluated with observed GMSL and coastal sea level from a global network of tide gauges as the short overlapping period (2007–2018) and natural variability make the detection of trends and accelerations challenging. Here, we critically evaluate these projections with satellite and tide-gauge observations. The observed trends from GMSL and the regional weighted mean at tide-gauge stations confirm the projections under three Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios within 90% confidence level during 2007–2018. The central values of the observed GMSL (1993–2018) and regional weighted mean (1970–2018) accelerations are larger than projections for RCP2.6 and lie between (or even above) those for RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 over 2007–2032, but are not yet statistically different from any scenario. While the confirmation of the projection trends gives us confidence in current understanding of near future sea-level change, it leaves open questions concerning late 21st century non-linear accelerations from ice-sheet contributions.

A revised sea level budget equation to accurately represent physical processes driving sea level rise

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bramha Dutt Vishwakarma ◽  
Sam Royston ◽  
Ricardo E. M. Riva ◽  
Richard M. Westaway ◽  
Jonathan L. Bamber
Keyword(s):  
Solid Earth ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Ocean Bottom ◽  
Physical Processes ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Ocean Mass ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Global Mean

<p>The sea level budget (SLB) equates changes in sea surface height (SSH) to the sum of various geo-physical processes that contribute to sea level change. Currently, it is a common practice to explain a change in SSH as a sum of ocean mass and steric change, assuming that solid-Earth motion is corrected for and completely explained by secular visco-elastic relaxation of mantle, due to the process of glacial isostatic adjustment. Yet, since the Solid Earth also responds elastically to changes in present day mass load near the surface of the Earth, we can expect the ocean bottom to respond to ongoing ocean mass changes. This elastic ocean bottom deformation (OBD) has been ignored until very recently because the contribution of ocean mass to sea level rise was thought to be smaller than the steric contribution and the resulting OBD was within observation system uncertainties. However, ocean mass change has increased rapidly in the last 2 decades. Therefore, OBD is no longer negligible and recent studies have shown that its magnitude is similar to that of the deep steric sea level contribution: a global mean of about 0.1 mm/yr but regional changes at some places can be more than 10 times the global mean. Although now an important part of the SLB, especially for regional sea level, OBD is considered by only a few budget studies and they treat it as a spatially uniform correction. This is due to lack of a mathematical framework that defines the contribution of OBD to the SLB. Here, we use a mass-volume framework to derive, for the first time, a SLB equation that partitions SSH change into its component parts accurately and it includes OBD as a physical response of the Earth system. This updated SLB equation is important for various disciplines of Earth Sciences that use the SLB equation: as a constraint to assess the quality of observational time-series; as a means to quantify the importance of each component of sea level change; and, to adequately include all processes in global and regional sea level projections. We recommend using the updated SLB equation for sea level budget studies. We also revisit the contemporary SLB with the updated SLB equation using satellite altimetry data, GRACE data, and ARGO data.</p>

scholarly journals Sea State Bias Variability in Satellite Altimetry Data

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1176
Author(s):  
Yongcun Cheng ◽  
Qing Xu ◽  
Le Gao ◽  
Xiaofeng Li ◽  
Bin Zou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Sea State ◽  
Mean Sea Level ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Sea State Bias ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Sea Level Trend ◽  
Global Mean Sea Level ◽  
Global Mean

Sea State Bias (SSB) contributes to global mean sea level variability and it needs cm-level range adjustment due to the instrumental drift over time. To investigate its variations and correct the global and regional sea level trend precisely, we calculate the temporal and spatial variability of the SSB correction in TOPEX, Jason-1, Jason-2 and Jason-3 missions, separately, as well as in the combined missions over the period 1993–2017. The long-term trend in global mean operational 2D non-parametric SSB correction is about −0.03 ± 0.03 mm/yr, which accounts for 1% of current global mean sea level change rate during 1993–2016. This correction contributes to sea level change rates of −1.27 ± 0.21 mm/yr and −0.26 ± 0.13 mm/yr in TOPEX-A and Jason-2 missions, respectively. The global mean SSB varies up to 7–10 mm during the very strong ENSO events in 1997–1998 and 2015–2016. Furthermore, the TOPEX SSB trend, which is consistent with recently reported sea level trend drift during 1993–1998, may leak into the determined global sea level trend in the period. Moreover, the Jason-1/2 zonal SSB variability is highly correlated with the significant wave height (SWH). On zonal average, SSB correction causes about 1% uncertainty in mean sea level trend. At high SWH regions, the uncertainties grow to 2–4% near the 50°N and 60°S bands. This should be considered in the study of regional sea level variability.

scholarly journals Contribution of Land Water Storage Change to Regional Sea-Level Rise Over the Twenty-First Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sitar Karabil ◽  
Edwin H. Sutanudjaja ◽  
Erwin Lambert ◽  
Marc F. P. Bierkens ◽  
Roderik S. W. Van de Wal
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
First Century ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Land Water ◽  
Global Mean

Change in Land Water Storage (LWS) is one of the main components driving sea-level rise over the twenty-first century. LWS alteration results from both human activities and climate change. Up to now, all components to sea-level change are usually quantified upon a certain climate change scenario except land water changes. Here, we propose to improve this by analyzing the contribution of LWS to regional sea-level change by considering five Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models forced by three different Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) greenhouse gas emission scenarios. For this analysis, we used LWS output of the global hydrological and water resources model, PCR-GLOBWB 2, in order to project regional sea-level patterns. Projections of ensemble means indicate a range of LWS-driven sea-level rise with larger differences in projections among climate models than between scenarios. Our results suggest that LWS change will contribute around 10% to the projected global mean sea-level rise by the end of twenty-first century. Contribution of LWS to regional sea-level rise is projected to be considerably larger than the global mean over several regions, up to 60% higher than global average of LWS-driven sea-level rise, including the Pacific islands, the south coast of Africa and the west coast of Australia.

scholarly journals Constructing scenarios of regional sea level change using global temperature pathways

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 115007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hylke de Vries ◽  
Caroline Katsman ◽  
Sybren Drijfhout
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Global Temperature ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Regional Sea Level Change

scholarly journals Understanding of Contemporary Regional Sea‐Level Change and the Implications for the Future

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Hamlington ◽  
Alex S. Gardner ◽  
Erik Ivins ◽  
Jan T. M. Lenaerts ◽  
J. T. Reager ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Level Change ◽  
The Future ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Regional Sea Level Change

An EEMD and BP neural network hybrid approach for modeling regional sea level change

2018 ◽  
Vol 121 ◽  
pp. 139-146
Author(s):  
Lei He ◽  
◽  
Jilong Chen ◽  
Yue Zhang ◽  
Tengjiao Guo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Bp Neural Network ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Regional Sea Level Change

scholarly journals Regional sea level change in response to ice mass loss in G reenland, the W est A ntarctic and A laska

2015 ◽  
Vol 120 (11) ◽  
pp. 7316-7328 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.‐E. Brunnabend ◽  
J. Schröter ◽  
R. Rietbroek ◽  
J. Kusche
Keyword(s):  
Mass Loss ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Sea Level Change ◽  
Level Change ◽  
Regional Sea Level ◽  
Regional Sea Level Change
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