The transient sea level response to external forcing in CMIP6 models

Aslak Grinsted, Jonathan Bamber*, Rory Bingham, Sammie Buzzard, Isabel Nias, Kelvin Ng, Jennifer Weeks

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land‐based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty‐first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre‐2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre‐industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere2022EF002696
Number of pages15
JournalEarth's Future
Volume10
Issue number10
Early online date8 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Oct 2022

Keywords

  • CMIP6: Trends, Interactions, Evaluation, and Impacts
  • ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
  • Air/sea constituent fluxes
  • Volcanic effects
  • BIOGEOSCIENCES
  • Climate dynamics
  • Modeling
  • COMPUTATIONAL GEOPHYSICS
  • Model verification and validation
  • Numerical solutions
  • CRYOSPHERE
  • Snow
  • Ice
  • Avalanches
  • Mass balance
  • Glaciology
  • GEODESY AND GRAVITY
  • Ocean monitoring with geodetic techniques
  • Ocean/Earth/atmosphere/hydrosphere/cryosphere interactions
  • Global change from geodesy
  • GLOBAL CHANGE
  • Cryospheric change
  • Coupled models of the climate system
  • Oceans
  • Sea level change
  • Abrupt/rapid climate change
  • Climate variability
  • Earth system modeling
  • Impacts of global change
  • Land/atmosphere interactions
  • Regional climate change
  • Solid Earth
  • Water cycles
  • HYDROLOGY
  • Climate impacts
  • Hydrological cycles and budgets
  • Snow and ice
  • INFORMATICS
  • MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS
  • Gravity and isostasy
  • ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES
  • Climate change and variability
  • Climatology
  • General circulation
  • Ocean/atmosphere interactions
  • Regional modeling
  • Theoretical modeling
  • OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL
  • Climate and interannual variability
  • Numerical modeling
  • NATURAL HAZARDS
  • Atmospheric
  • Geological
  • Oceanic
  • Physical modeling
  • Climate impact
  • Risk
  • Disaster risk analysis and assessment
  • OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL
  • Air/sea interactions
  • Decadal ocean variability
  • Ocean influence of Earth rotation
  • Sea level: variations and mean
  • Surface waves and tides
  • Tsunamis and storm surges
  • PALEOCEANOGRAPHY
  • POLICY SCIENCES
  • Benefit‐cost analysis
  • RADIO SCIENCE
  • Radio oceanography
  • SEISMOLOGY
  • Earthquake ground motions and engineering seismology
  • Volcano seismology
  • VOLCANOLOGY
  • Volcano/climate interactions
  • Atmospheric effects
  • Volcano monitoring
  • Effusive volcanism
  • Mud volcanism
  • Explosive volcanism
  • Volcanic hazards and risks
  • Research Article
  • sea level rise
  • ice loss
  • thermosteric
  • model validation
  • sensitivity
  • projections

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