Sea level budget over 2003-2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry, satellite altimetry and Argo

0921-8181From the IPCC 4th Assessment Report published in 2007, ocean thermal expansion contributed by similar to 50% to the 3.1 mm/yr observed global mean sea level rise during the 1993-2003 decade, the remaining rate of rise being essentially explained by shrinking of land ice. Recently published results suggest that since about 2003, ocean thermal expansion change, based on the newly deployed Argo system, is showing a plateau while sea level is still rising, although at a reduced rate (similar to 2.5 mm/yr). Using space gravimetry observations from GRACE, we show that recent years sea level rise can be mostly explained by an increase of the mass of the oceans. Estimating GRACE-based ice sheet mass balance and using published estimates for glaciers melting, we further show that ocean mass increase since 2003 results by about half from an enhanced contribution of the polar ice sheets - compared to the previous decade - and half from mountain glaciers melting. Taking also into account the small GRACE-based contribution from continental waters (<0.2 mm/yr), we find a total ocean mass contribution of similar to 2 mm/yr over 2003-2008. Such a value represents similar to 80% of the altimetry-based rate of sea level rise over that period. We next estimate the steric sea level (i.e., ocean thermal expansion plus salinity effects) contribution from: (1) the difference between altimetry-based sea level and ocean mass change and (2) Argo data. Inferred steric sea level rate from (1) (similar to 0.3 mm/yr over 2003-2008) agrees well with the Argo-based value also estimated here (0.37 mm/yr over 2004-2008). Furthermore, the sea level budget approach presented in this study allows us to constrain independent estimates of the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) correction applied to GRACE-based ocean and ice sheet mass changes, as well as of glaciers melting. Values for the CIA correction and glacier contribution needed to close the sea level budget and explain GRACE-based mass estimates over the recent years agree well with totally independent determinations. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Thermosteric sea level rise for the past 50 years; comparison with tide gauges and inference on water mass contribution

0921-8181In this paper we compare sea level trends observed at a few selected tide gauges of good quality records with thermosteric (i.e., due to ocean temperature change) sea level trends over 1950-1998 using different gridded ocean temperature data sets from Levitus et al. (2000) [Levitus, S., Stephens, C., Antonov, J.I., Boyer, T.P., 2000. Yearly and Year-Season Upper Ocean Temperature Anomaly Fields, 1948-1998. U.S. Gov. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. pp. 23.], Ishii et al. (2003) [Ishii, M., Kimoto, M., Kachi, M., 2003. Historical ocean subsurface temperature analysis with error estimates, Mon. Weather Rev., 13 1, 51-73.] and Levitus et al. (2005) [Levitus S., Antonov, J.I., Boyer, T.P., 2005. Warming of the world ocean, 1955-2003. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L02604. doi:10.1029/2004GL021592.]. When using the Levitus data, we observe very high thermosteric rates at sites located along the northeast coast of the US, north of 37 degrees N. Such high rates are not observed with the Ishii data. Elsewhere, thermosteric rates agree reasonably well whatever the data set. Excluding the northeast US coastline sites north of 37 degrees N, we compare tide gauge-based sea level trends with thermosteric trends and note that, in spite of a significant correlation, the latter are too small to explain the observed trends. After correcting for thermosteric sea level trends, residual (observed minus thermosteric) trends have an average value of 1.4 +/- 0.5 mm/year, which should have an eustatic (i.e., due to ocean mass change) origin. This result supports the recent investigation by Miller and Douglas (2004) [Miller, L., Douglas, B.C., 2004. Mass and volume contributions to 20th century global sea level rise. Nature 428, 406-408.] which suggests that a dominant eustatic contribution is needed to explain the rate of sea level rise of the last decades observed by tide gauges, and shows that Cabanes et al. (2001) [Cabanes, C., Cazenave, A., Le Provost, C., 2001. Sea level rise during past 40 years determined from satellite and in situ observations. Science 294, 840-842.] arrived at an incorrect conclusion due to peculiarities in the gridded Levitus et al. (2000) [Levitus, S., Stephens, C., Antonov, J.I., and Boyer, T.P., 2000. Yearly and Year-Season Upper Ocean Temperature Anomaly Fields, 1948-1998. U.S. Gov. Printing Office, Washington, D.C. pp. 23.] data set. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved