Comparison of results from several AOGCMs for global and regional sea-level change 1900-2100

Gregory, Jonathan M.; Church, John A.; Boer, G. J.; Dixon, Keith W.; Flato, Gregory M.; Jackett, David R.; Lowe, Jason; O’Farrell, Siobhan; Roeckner, Erich; Russell, Gary L.; Stouffer, Ronald J.; Winton, Michael

doi:10.1007/s003820100180

Cited by 145 publications

(114 citation statements)

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“…In the extra tropics, where the wind stress forcing effect on SSH is smaller, the buoyancy forcing effect becomes significant and explains a sizeable part of the SSH variability and trends. In general, on average over the ocean, the buoyancy forcing effect on SSH trends is positive which reflects the penetration of heat into the ocean and the global warming of the ocean (Gregory et al 2001;Suzuki and Ishii 2011). This result confirms that different reasons explain the global sea level rise from ocean warming and the regional sea level rise.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

et al. 2016

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We analyse the regional variability in observed sea surface height (SSH), sea surface temperature (SST) and ocean colour (OC) from the ESA Climate Change Initiative datasets over the period [1993][1994][1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011]. The analysis focuses on the signature of the ocean large-scale climate fluctuations driven by the atmospheric forcing and do not address the mesoscale variability. We use the ECCO version 4 ocean reanalysis to unravel the role of ocean transport and surface buoyancy fluxes in the observed SSH, SST and OC variability. We show that the SSH regional variability is dominated by the steric effect (except at high latitude) and is mainly shaped by ocean heat transport divergences with some contributions from the surface heat fluxes forcing that can be significant regionally (confirming earlier results). This is in contrast with the SST regional variability, which is the result of the compensation of surface heat fluxes by ocean heat transport in the mixed layer and arises from small departures around this background balance. Bringing together the results of SSH and SST analyses, we show that SSH and SST bear some common variability. This is because both SSH and SST variability show significant contributions from the surface heat fluxes forcing. It is evidenced by the high correlation between SST and buoyancy-forced SSH almost everywhere in the ocean except at high latitude. OC, which is determined by phytoplankton biomass, is governed by the availability of light and nutrients that essentially depend on climate fluctuations. For this reason, OC shows significant correlation with SST and SSH. We show that the correlation with SST displays the same pattern as the correlation with SSH with a negative correlation in the tropics and subtropics and a positive correlation at high latitude. We discuss the reasons for this pattern.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

et al. 2016

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“…From an oceanography perspective, changes in the density structure of the ocean and changes in circulation are likely to be associated with changes in the pattern of sea surface height as the ocean seeks to attain a new dynamic balance (e.g. Gregory et al 2001;Landerer et al 2007;Bouttes et al 2012). From the perspective of geology and solid earth physics, there are also spatial components associated with change in the Earth's gravity field as water moves from storage in land ice into the ocean and movement of the solid Earth as the mass loading on both the land and ocean basins change (e.g.…”

Section: Time-mean Sea Level Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Projected Change—North Sea

Schrum

Lowe

Meier

et al. 2016

North Sea Region Climate Change Assessment

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Increasing numbers of regional climate change scenario assessments have become available for the North Sea. A critical review of the regional studies has helped identify robust changes, challenges, uncertainties and specific recommendations for future research. Coherent findings from the climate change impact studies reviewed in this chapter include overall increases in sea level and ocean temperature, a freshening of the North Sea, an increase in ocean acidification and a decrease in primary production. However, findings from multi-model ensembles show the amplitude and spatial pattern of the projected changes in sea level, temperature, salinity and primary production are not consistent among the various regional projections and remain uncertain. Different approaches are used to downscale global climate change impacts, each with advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of the downscaling method employed, the regional studies are ultimately affected by the forcing global climate models. Projecting regional climate change impacts on biogeochemistry and primary production is currently limited by a lack of consistent downscaling approaches for marine and terrestrial impacts. Substantial natural variability in the North Sea region from annual to multi-decadal time scales is a particular challenge for projecting regional climate change impacts. Natural variability dominates long-term trends in wind fields and strongly wind-influenced characteristics like local sea level, storm C. Schrum

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“…It is important to note that results from different climate models also show that there is little agreement between projected patterns of ocean surface variations (e.g. Gregory et al 2001;Meehl et al 2007). This means there is generally low confidence in regional projections of ocean density and circulation change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here we briefly address the uncertainties with projected patterns of ocean density and circulation changes which, generally speaking, show poor agreement (e.g. Gregory et al 2001;Meehl et al 2007). Results from AOGCMs indicate an above average sea-level rise for Norway over the twenty-first century but with relatively large uncertainties attached to the projections (Sect.…”

Section: Reducing the Uncertainty Of Sea-level Projections And Missinmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that the global mean thermal expansion component has been corrected for the near linear trend found in some of the AOGCMs control runs (e.g. Gregory et al 2001). As information is not available for all the AOGCMs, we use between 12 and 15 of the models in the CMIP3 database to calculate the projected global mean depending on the forcing scenario applied.…”

Section: Future Ocean Density and Circulation Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Estimates of twenty-first century sea-level changes for Norway

2013

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In this work we establish a framework for estimating future regional sea-level changes for Norway. Following recently published works, we consider how different physical processes drive non-uniform sea-level changes by accounting for spatial variations in (1) ocean density and circulation (2) ice and ocean mass changes and associated gravitational effects on sea level and (3) vertical land motion arising from past surface loading change and associated gravitational effects on sea level. An important component of past and present sea-level change in Norway is glacial isostatic adjustment. Central to our study, therefore, is a reassessment of vertical land motion using a far larger set of new observations from a permanent GNSS network. Our twenty-first century sea-level estimates are split into two parts. Firstly, we show regional projections largely based on findings from the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4) and dependent on the emission scenarios A2, A1B and B1. These indicate that twenty-first century relative sea-level changes in Norway will vary between -0.2 to 0.3 m (1-sigma ± 0.13 m). Secondly, we explore a high-end scenario, in which a global atmospheric temperature rise of up to 6°C and emerging collapse for some areas of the Antarctic ice sheets are assumed. Using this approach twenty-first century relative sea-level changes in Norway are found to vary between 0.25 and 0.85 m (min/ max ± 0.45 m). We attach no likelihood to any of our projections owing to the lack of understanding of some of the processes that cause sea-level change.

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Comparison of results from several AOGCMs for global and regional sea-level change 1900-2100

Cited by 145 publications

References 0 publications

Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

Causes of the Regional Variability in Observed Sea Level, Sea Surface Temperature and Ocean Colour Over the Period 1993–2011

Projected Change—North Sea

Estimates of twenty-first century sea-level changes for Norway

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