Persistent acceleration in global sea-level rise since the 1960s

Sönke Dangendorf (), Carling Hay, Francisco M. Calafat, Marta Marcos, Christopher G. Piecuch, Kevin Berk and Jürgen Jensen
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Sönke Dangendorf: University of Siegen
Carling Hay: Boston College
Francisco M. Calafat: National Oceanography Centre
Marta Marcos: IMEDEA (UIB-CSIC)
Christopher G. Piecuch: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Kevin Berk: University of Siegen
Jürgen Jensen: University of Siegen

Nature Climate Change, 2019, vol. 9, issue 9, 705-710

Abstract: Abstract Previous studies reconstructed twentieth-century global mean sea level (GMSL) from sparse tide-gauge records to understand whether the recent high rates obtained from satellite altimetry are part of a longer-term acceleration. However, these analyses used techniques that can only accurately capture either the trend or the variability in GMSL, but not both. Here we present an improved hybrid sea-level reconstruction during 1900–2015 that combines previous techniques at time scales where they perform best. We find a persistent acceleration in GMSL since the 1960s and demonstrate that this is largely (~76%) associated with sea-level changes in the Indo-Pacific and South Atlantic. We show that the initiation of the acceleration in the 1960s is tightly linked to an intensification and a basin-scale equatorward shift of Southern Hemispheric westerlies, leading to increased ocean heat uptake, and hence greater rates of GMSL rise, through changes in the circulation of the Southern Ocean.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0531-8

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