Nonlinear Interactions and Some Other Aspects of Probabilistic Sea Level Projections

Abstract

Probabilistic sea level projections are frequently used to characterise the uncertainty in future sea level rise. Here, it is investigated how different modelling assumptions and process estimates affect such projections using two process-based models that add up the sea level contributions from different processes such as thermosteric expansion and ice sheet melt. A method is applied to estimate the direct contributions from the different processes as well as that of nonlinear interactions between the processes to the projections. In general, the nonlinear interaction terms are found to be small compared to the direct contributions from the processes, and only a few interaction terms give significant contributions to the projections. Apart from the process estimates, probabilistic models often also incorporate some expert judgements that inflate the uncertainty compared with that derived from climate and ice-sheet models, and the effects of some such judgements are also evaluated and found to have a considerable influence on the projections. Lastly, sea level projections are most often given contingent on representative concentration pathways for atmospheric greenhouse gases. Here, we generalize this approach by also providing projections for a probabilistic baseline scenario.

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