The drivers of projected North Atlantic sea level change

Sea level change predicted by the CMIP5 atmosphere–ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs) is not spatially homogeneous. In particular, the sea level change in the North Atlantic is usually characterised by a meridional dipole pattern with higher sea level rise north of 40°N and lower to the south. The spread among models is also high in that region. Here we evaluate the role of surface buoyancy fluxes by carrying out simulations with the FAMOUS low-resolution AOGCM forced by surface freshwater and heat flux changes from CO₂-forced climate change experiments with CMIP5 AOGCMs, and by a standard idealised surface freshwater flux applied in the North Atlantic. Both kinds of buoyancy flux change lead to the formation of the sea level dipole pattern, although the effect of the heat flux has a greater magnitude, and is the main cause of the spread of results among the CMIP5 models. By using passive tracers in FAMOUS to distinguish between additional and redistributed buoyancy, we show that the enhanced sea level rise north of 40°N is mainly due to the direct steric effect (the reduction of sea water density) caused by adding heat or freshwater locally. The surface buoyancy forcing also causes a weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, and the consequent reduction of the northward ocean heat transport imposes a negative tendency on sea level rise, producing the reduced rise south of 40°N. However, unlike previous authors, we find that this indirect effect of buoyancy forcing is generally less important than the direct one, except in a narrow band along the east coast of the US, where it plays a major role and leads to sea level rise, as found by previous authors.     

Regional sea level changes projected by the NASA/GISS Atmosphere-Ocean Model

Sea level has been rising for the past century, and coastal residents of the Earth will want to understand and predict future sea level changes. In this study we present sea level changes from new simulations of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) global atmosphere-ocean model from 1950 to 2099. The free surface, mass conserving ocean model leads to a straightforward calculation of these changes. Using observed levels of greenhouse gases between 1950 and 1990 and a compounded 0.5% annual increase in CO₂ after 1990, model projections show that global sea level measured from 1950 will rise by 61?mm in the year 2000, by 212?mm in 2050, and by 408?mm in 2089. By 2089, 64% of the global sea level rise will be due to thermal expansion and 36% will be due to ocean mass changes. The Arctic Ocean will show a greater than average sea level rise, while the Antarctic circumpolar region will show a smaller rise in agreement with other models. Model results are also compared with observed sea level changes during the past 40 years at 12 coastal stations around the world.     

Global forest products markets and forest sector carbon impacts of projected sea level rise

Sea level rise (SLR) is among the climate-change-related problems of greatest concern, threatening the lives and property of coastal residents and generating far-reaching economic and ecological impacts. We project that SLR will lead to an increase in the rate of new housing construction to replace destroyed structures, impact global wood products supply and demand conditions, and cause changes in global forest sector carbon mitigation potential. Findings indicate that 71 million new units will be built by 2050 to accommodate the SLR-affected global population. More than two-thirds of these new units are projected to be in Asia. The estimated extra wood products needed to build these new residential units is 1,659 million m³, assuming that all these structures would be built mainly with wood, representing a 4 % increase in total wood consumption, compared to projected reference level global wood products consumption. Increased timber removals to meet this higher construction wood demand (alternative scenario) is shown to deplete global forest carbon by 2 % by 2050 compared to the reference scenario. However, all such projected declines in forest biomass carbon could be more than offset by increased carbon sequestration in harvested wood products, avoided emissions due to substitution of wood for non-wood materials in construction, and biomass regrowth on forestland by 2050, with an estimated net emissions reduction benefit of 0.47 tCO₂e/tCO₂e of extra wood used in SLR-related new houses over 30 years. The global net emissions reduction benefit increased to 2.13 tCO₂e/tCO₂e of extra wood when price-induced changes in forest land area were included.     

A model study of factors influencing projected changes in regional sea level over the twenty-first century

In addition to projected increases in global mean sea level over the 21st century, model simulations suggest there will also be changes in the regional distribution of sea level relative to the global mean. There is a considerable spread in the projected patterns of these changes by current models, as shown by the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment (AR4). This spread has not reduced from that given by the Third Assessment models. Comparison with projections by ensembles of models based on a single structure supports an earlier suggestion that models of similar formulation give more similar patterns of sea level change. Analysing an AR4 ensemble of model projections under a business-as-usual scenario shows that steric changes (associated with subsurface ocean density changes) largely dominate the sea level pattern changes. The relative importance of subsurface temperature or salinity changes in contributing to this differs from region to region and, to an extent, from model-to-model. In general, thermosteric changes give the spatial variations in the Southern Ocean, halosteric changes dominate in the Arctic and strong compensation between thermosteric and halosteric changes characterises the Atlantic. The magnitude of sea level and component changes in the Atlantic appear to be linked to the amount of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC) weakening. When the MOC weakening is substantial, the Atlantic thermosteric patterns of change arise from a dominant role of ocean advective heat flux changes.     

The variance of sea surface temperature and projected changes with global warming

Based on the surface energy budget, the sea surface temperature (SST) variance is related to the product of three factors: the sum of the variances of surface radiative and turbulent energy fluxes and of ocean heat transport, an efficiency factor depending on the covariances among them, and a transfer factor involving the persistence of surface temperature via its lagged autocorrelation. These quantities are analyzed for current climate conditions based on results from the NCEP/NCAR reanalyses and a simulation with the CCCma coupled climate model. Potential changes with climate change are considered based on two quasi-equilibrium climate change integrations for which the forcing has been stabilized at years 2050 and 2100 values of the IS92a forcing scenario. The surface energy fluxes, which contribute to the variance of SST, are similar in the modelled and reanalyzed atmosphere but modelled temperature variance is conditioned on the thickness of the upper ocean model layer. Changes of SST variance with global warming show broad scale patterns with decreases in the tropical central-eastern Pacific and the northern extra-tropical Pacific, and increases in both the sub-tropical Pacific and mid-latitudes of the North Atlantic. The changes in SST variance are not associated only with changes in the variances of surface energy fluxes/transports but also with changes in the covariances among them and by changes in the temperature autocorrelation structure.     

Linear response functions to project contributions to future sea level

We propose linear response functions to separately estimate the sea-level contributions of thermal expansion and solid ice discharge from Greenland and Antarctica. The response function formalism introduces a time-dependence which allows for future rates of sea-level rise to be influenced by past climate variations. We find that this time-dependence is of the same functional type, R(t) ～ t ^α, for each of the three subsystems considered here. The validity of the approach is assessed by comparing the sea-level estimates obtained via the response functions to projections from comprehensive models. The pure vertical diffusion case in one dimension, corresponding to α =  ?0.5, is a valid approximation for thermal expansion within the ocean up to the middle of the twenty first century for all Representative Concentration Pathways. The approximation is significantly improved for α =  ? 0.7. For the solid ice discharge from Greenland we find an optimal value of α =  ?0.7. Different from earlier studies we conclude that solid ice discharge from Greenland due to dynamic thinning is bounded by 0.42 m sea-level equivalent. Ice discharge induced by surface warming on Antarctica is best captured by a positive value of α = 0.1 which reflects the fact that ice loss increases with the cumulative amount of heat available for softening the ice in our model.     

Seasonal variability of the observed and the projected daily temperatures in northern Saudi Arabia

Variability in the observed daily temperature for the 31-year period (1978–2008) is studied for northern Saudi Arabia (nSA) by computing the probability distribution functions (PDFs) on a seasonal basis. The 31-year base period is divided into three decades and the results for the first (1978–1987) and the last decade (1999–2008) are presented. When averaged over all seasons, mean values of the observed decadal PDFs depict a positive shift from the first to last decade in the minimum, mean, and maximum temperature of 0.81 °C, 1.03 °C, and 1.25 °C, respectively. The daily temperature datasets from a regional climate model (RCM) and two versions of a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) are compared with the observed daily temperature datasets. The RCM is driven by re-analysis data for the historical period and by the HadCM3 model for the future, while the AOGCMs used are the GFDL CM2.0 and 2.1 models, with both HadCM3 and the GFDL simulations corresponding to the SRES A1B scenario. The average shifts from 1978–1987 to 1999–2008 in the mean value of the PDFs for the minimum, mean and maximum temperature are 0.63 °C, 0.54 °C and 0.45 °C, respectively, for the RCM, and 0.97 °C, 0.97 °C and 0.96 °C, respectively, for the AOGCM. Thus, the RCM shows a smaller shift in the mean of PDF for maximum temperature than for mean or minimum temperature, the AOGCM shows a comparable shift for all three, and the observations show a greater shift in the PDF for maximum temperature. For the period 2070–2099 relative to 1978–2008, the three average shifts are 4.11 °C, 3.87 °C and 3.44 °C for the RCM and 3.63 °C, 3.74 °C and 3.84 °C for the AOGCM.     

全球变暖和海平面上升

<正>由于全球海平面的变化与海洋热容量的变化和海洋与陆地冰盖(或冰川)的融化密切相关,因此全球海平面变化是衡量全球气候变化的重要指标。IPCC第五次科学评估报告继续强调,全球变暖和全球海平面上升密切相关[1]。但是,由于海洋观测资料的获取困难和气候模式的不确定性等因素,提出对全球变暖与海平面上升有必要进行更深入的研究,近年世界气候研究计划(WCRP)召开了海平面变化研讨会[2],给出了自IPCC第五次评估报告以来的进展,由于研究涉及的领域宽     

Emission metrics and sea level rise

Here we present two new metrics used for comparing climate impacts of emissions of different climate forcers: the Global Sea level rise Potential (GSP) and the Integrated Global Sea level rise Potential (IGSP). The GSP represents the Sea Level Rise (SLR) at a given time horizon due to an emission pulse of a forcer; the IGSP is similar but represents the time integrated SLR up to a given point in time. The GSP and IGSP are presented relative to the SLR caused by a comparable emission pulse of carbon dioxide. The metrics are assessed using an Upwelling-Diffusion Energy Balance Model (UDEBM). We focus primarily on the thermosteric part of SLR, denoted GSP_th. All of the examined climate forcers – even black carbon, a very Short-Lived Climate Forcer (SLCF) – have considerable influence on the thermosteric SLR on the century time scale. For a given time horizon and forcer, GSP_th lies in between the corresponding metric values obtained using Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Global Temperature change Potential (GTP), whereas IGSP_th ends up in the opposite end to GTP in the spectrum of compared metrics. GSP_th and IGSP_th are more sensitive for SLCFs than for the long-lived Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) to changes in the parameterization of the model (under the time horizons considered here). We also use a Semi-Empirical (SE) model to estimate the full SLR, and corresponding GSP_SE and IGSP_SE, as alternatives to the thermosteric approach. For SLCFs, GSP_SE is greater than GSP_th for all time horizons considered, while the opposite holds for long-lived GHGs such as SF₆.     

Failure to protect beaches under slowly rising sea level

The increase in population and the improvement of life standards are stretching the boundaries between water-energy-land management, and demanding innovative and holistic solutions. This article proposes an approach for increasing the water availability of two or more water basins taking into consideration land use and wind patterns, and was named Land, Water, and Wind Watershed Cycle (L3WC). This approach can be applied to one watershed or a combination of watersheds. In the first case, if wind patterns blow mainly in the opposite direction of the main river flow, plantations with high water demand should be focused on the lowest part of the basin. The transpired moisture would then return to the basin with the wind and possibly increase the water availability of the basin. Applying this method to a series of basins, water is transposed from one basin to another, used for irrigated agriculture, returned to the atmosphere with evapotranspiration and pushed back to the basin where the water was extracted by the wind. Case studies of this methodology are presented in the São Francisco basin and between the Tocantins, Amazonas, and Paraná basins and the São Francisco basin in Brazil. The São Francisco basin was selected because it is located in a dry region, its flow has considerably reduced in the past decade and because the trade winds blow constantly from the ocean into the continent all year around. L3WC is a strategy to plan the allocation of water consumption in a watershed, taking into account wind patterns to support the sustainable development of a region. It has the potential of increasing water availability and creating a climate change adaptation mechanism to control the climate and reduce vulnerability to climatic variations.     

Warm-season temperatures since 1600 BC reconstructed from Tasmanian tree rings and their relationship to large-scale sea surface temperature anomalies

We describe an improved tree-ring reconstruction of mean warm-season (November–April) temperatures for Tasmania from Huon pine. This record extends back to 1600 BC and is based on a tree-ring chronology that was processed to retain as much low-frequency variance as possible. The resulting reconstruction explains 46.6% of the variance and verifies significantly when compared to withheld instrumental data. Cross-spectral analysis of actual and estimated temperatures over the 1886–1991 common period indicates that most of the unexplained variance is at periods < 12 years in length. At periods > 12 years, the squared coherency ranges between 0.6–0.8, and the cross-spectral gain indicates that the amplitude of the reconstruction is a nearly unbiased estimate of the true temperature amplitude. Therefore, this reconstruction should be especially useful for studying multi-decadal temperature variability in the Tasmanian sector of the Southern Hemisphere over the past 3592 years. To this end, we examined the time evolution of low-frequency temperature amplitude fluctuations and found evidence for a 35% amplitude reduction after AD 100 that persisted until about AD 1900. Since that time, the low-frequency temperature amplitude has systematically increased. We also show how this reconstruction is related to large-scale sea surface temperatures (SST) in the Indian Ocean and eastward to the dateline. Pointwise correlations between the Tasmanian record and SSTs reveal a relationship that extends across the southern Indian Ocean and towards the Arabian Sea. This pattern is largely determined by inter-decadal temperature variability, with correlations in this > 10-year bandwidth commonly exceeding 0.6 over most of the southern Indian and southwestern Pacific sectors. A rotated empirical orthogonal function analysis reveals that the pattern of pointwise correlations found between the temperature reconstruction and SSTs is largely explained by the linear combination of three orthogonal modes of SST variability. Received: 12 January 1999 / Accepted: 31 July 1999     

Harmonic analysis of tides from standard observations of the sea level

Peculiarities of harmonic analysis of tides by using standard observation data of the sea level with a 6-hourly time step are considered. Masking frequencies causing difficulties when interpreting the results of the data analysis are presented. A method of control and editing of standard observations by using a non-recursive filter is proposed. The data interpolation approach based on direct and inverse Fourier transformation is considered.     

Interannual and interdecadal oscillation patterns in sea level

Relative sea-level height (RSLH) data at 213 tide-gauge stations have been analyzed on a monthly and an annual basis to study interannual and interdecadal oscillations, respectively. The main tools of the study are singular spectrum analysis (SSA) and multi-channel SSA (M-SSA). Very-low-frequency variability of RSLH was filtered by SSA to estimate the linear trend at each station. Global sea-level rise, after postglacial rebound corrections, has been found to equal 1.62±0.38 mm/y, by averaging over 175 stations which have a trend consistent with the neighboring ones. We have identified two dominant time scales of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, quasi-biennial and low-frequency, in the RSLH data at almost all stations. However, the amplitudes of both ENSO signals are higher in the equatorial Pacific and along the west coast of North America. RSLH data were interpolated along ocean coasts by latitudinal intervals of 5 or 10 degrees, depending on station density. Interannual variability was then examined by M-SSA in five regions: eastern Pacific (25°S–55°N at 10° resolution), western Pacific (35°S–45°N at 10°), equatorial Pacific (123°E–169°W, 6 stations), eastern Atlantic (30°S, 0°, and 30°N–70°N at 5°) and western Atlantic (50°S–50°N at 10°). Throughout the Pacific, we have found three dominant spatio-temporal oscillatory patterns, associated with time scales of ENSO variability; their periods are 2, 2.5–3 and 4–6 y. In the eastern Pacific, the biennial mode and the 6-y low-frequency mode propagate poleward. There is a southward propagation of low-frequency modes in the western Pacific RSLH, between 35°N and 5°S, but no clear propagation in the latitudes further south. However, equatorward propagation of the biennial signal is very clear in the Southern Hemisphere. In the equatorial Pacific, both the quasi-quadrennial and quasi-biennial modes at 10°N propagate westward. Strong and weak El Niño years are evident in the sea-level time series reconstructed from the quasi-biennial and low-frequency modes. Interannual variability with periods of 3 and 4–8 y is detected in the Atlantic RSLH data. In the eastern Atlantic region, we have found slow propagation of both modes northward and southward, away from 40–45°N. Interdecadal oscillations were studied using 81 stations with sufficiently long and continuous records. Most of these have variability at 9–13 and some at 18 y. Two significant eigenmode pairs, corresponding to periods of 11.6 and 12.8 y, are found in the eastern and western Atlantic ocean at latitudes 40°N–70°N and 10°N–50°N, respectively.     

A comparison of sea level projections based on the observed and reconstructed sea level data around the Korean Peninsula

In an attempt to estimate accurate local sea level change, “sea level trend” modes are identified and separated from natural variability via cyclostationary empirical orthogonal function (CSEOF) analysis applied to both the tide gauge data (1965–2013) and the reconstruction data (1950–2010) around the Korean Peninsula. For the tide gauge data, ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method is also used to estimate sea level trend to understand an uncertainty from different analysis tools. The three trend models—linear, quadratic, and exponential—are fitted to the amplitude time series of the trend mode so that future projection of sea level can be made. Based on a quadratic model, the rate of local sea level rise (SLR) is expected to be 4.63?±?1.1 mm year^?1 during 2010–2060. The estimates of “local” sea level trend vary up to ～30%. It should be noted that, although the three trend models estimate similar sea level trends during the observational period, the projected sea level trend and subsequent SLR differ significantly from one model to another and between the tide gauge data and the reconstruction data; this results in a substantial uncertainty in the future SLR around the Korean Peninsula.     

The effects of aggressive mitigation on steric sea level rise and sea ice changes

With an increasing political focus on limiting global warming to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels it is vital to understand the consequences of these targets on key parts of the climate system. Here, we focus on changes in sea level and sea ice, comparing twenty-first century projections with increased greenhouse gas concentrations (using the mid-range IPCC A1B emissions scenario) with those under a mitigation scenario with large reductions in emissions (the E1 scenario). At the end of the twenty-first century, the global mean steric sea level rise is reduced by about a third in the mitigation scenario compared with the A1B scenario. Changes in surface air temperature are found to be poorly correlated with steric sea level changes. While the projected decreases in sea ice extent during the first half of the twenty-first century are independent of the season or scenario, especially in the Arctic, the seasonal cycle of sea ice extent is amplified. By the end of the century the Arctic becomes sea ice free in September in the A1B scenario in most models. In the mitigation scenario the ice does not disappear in the majority of models, but is reduced by 42 % of the present September extent. Results for Antarctic sea ice changes reveal large initial biases in the models and a significant correlation between projected changes and the initial extent. This latter result highlights the necessity for further refinements in Antarctic sea ice modelling for more reliable projections of future sea ice.     

Recent changes in sea level and their possible causes

A new analysis of ‘global’ sea level has been made that largely avoids space/time bias of previous works. A coherent pattern of increasing relative sea level (RSL) was found to exist on average at all stations analyzed between 1903–1969. Subject to considerable assumption, the rate of RSL increase associated with this pattern was 15 cm/century. A similar analysis of the period 1930–1975 again showed RSL increasing on average everywhere but in the western half of the North Pacific Ocean. Decrease of RSL in this area was substantiated by hydrographic data. Thus in recent years the concept of a ‘global’ sea level rise is not supported. The temporal behavior of thenear global signals from both time periods was well approximated by a simple linear trend. There was no evidence of a more rapid rise in RSL in recent years. Potential causes of the above RSL change were investigated. Changes in the position of the earth's axis of rotation support the idea that the RSL change was due to approximately equal melting of Greenland/Antarctica. Changes in the length of day only marginally support this idea. However, other attractive geophysical explanations for variations in both these astronomical parameters exist. Observed change in sea surface temperature (SST), if representative of reasonable changes in vertical thermal structure, could give the observed RSL change. However, the SST data are likely biased instrumentally toward increasing trend. Also, thermal expansion of the oceans would not significantly affect the rotational parameters although changes in these parameters could be due to non-RSL related processes. Changes in ocean circulation and/or subsidence along all the coastal margins simultaneously seem unlikely causes of the observed change in RSL. In summary, it is not possible at this time to explain reliably the apparent increase in RSL.     

Climatic variability of the sub-surface sea temperatures in the Aegean-Black Sea system and relation to meteorological forcing

Non-smoothed yearly temperature records with minimal statistical uncertainties are constructed for winter and summer of the period 1950–2000 in two areas in the Aegean Sea, for the sub-surface layer of 80–120?m, and two areas in the Black Sea, for the sub-surface layer of sigma-theta isopycnals between 14.5 and 15.4. The specific areas are selected mostly because of the dense hydrographic-data coverage they have during the period 1950–2000. Two trend regimes appear in both Seas: a period of decreasing sea temperatures from the early/mid 1960s to the early/mid 1990s and an apparent warming afterwards. Trends in sea temperatures correlate with trends in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and partly the East Atlantic West Russian (EAWR) indexes, but the signs of NAO and/or EAWR cannot sufficiently justify the winter-to-winter temperature changes in the entire study area. In examining the wind flows in the sea-level-pressure maps for characteristic winters in which local peaks in the sea-temperature records occur, we identify particular sea-level-pressure structures that are not accounted for by the typical North-Atlantic or East Atlantic-West Russia positive or negative dipoles. In addition, there are winters when the Siberian High induces local maxima in sea-temperatures in the study area. A spectral-coherence analysis of the unfiltered winter sea-temperature and the corresponding teleconnection NAO/EAWR records, shows that common spectral and coherence peaks exist at ~5–6, ~9–10 and ~15–17?years.