Sea level trends in Southeast Asian seas

Southeast Asian seas span the largest archipelago in the global oceanand provide a complex oceanic pathway connecting the Pacific and Indianoceans. The Southeast Asian sea regional sea level trends are some of the highest observedin the modern satellite altimeter record that now spans almost 2 decades.Initial comparisons of global sea level reconstructions find that 17-yearsea level trends over the past 60 years exhibit good agreement with decadalvariability associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and relatedfluctuations of trade winds in the region. The Southeast Asian sea region exhibits sealevel trends that vary dramatically over the studied time period. Thishistorical variation suggests that the strong regional sea level trendsobserved during the modern satellite altimeter record will abate as tradewinds fluctuate on decadal and longer timescales. Furthermore, afterremoving the contribution of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) to sea level trends in the past20 years, the rate of sea level rise is greatly reduced in the Southeast Asian sea region. Asa result of the influence of the PDO, the Southeast Asian sea regional sea level trendsduring the 2010s and 2020s are likely to be less than the global mean sea level(GMSL) trend if the observed oscillations in wind forcing and sea levelpersist. Nevertheless, long-term sea level trends in the Southeast Asian seas will continueto be affected by GMSL rise occurring now and in the future