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Quantifying recent acceleration in sea level unrelated to internal climate variability
Author(s) -
Calafat F. M.,
Chambers D. P.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/grl.50731
Subject(s) - environmental science , climatology , sea level , forcing (mathematics) , atmospheric sciences , volcano , climate change , tide gauge , acceleration , geology , oceanography , physics , classical mechanics , seismology
Sea level observations suggest that the rate of sea level rise has accelerated during the last 20 years. However, the presence of considerable decadal‐scale variability, especially on a regional scale, makes it difficult to assess whether the observed changes are due to natural or anthropogenic causes. Here we use a regression model with atmospheric pressure, wind, and climate indices as independent variables to quantify the contribution of internal climate variability to the sea level at nine tide gauges from around the world for the period 1920–2011. Removing this contribution reveals a statistically significant acceleration (0.022 ± 0.015 mm/yr 2 ) between 1952 and 2011, which is unique over the whole period. Furthermore, we have found that the acceleration is increasing over time. This acceleration appears to be the result of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, along with changes in volcanic forcing and tropospheric aerosol loading.