sea level rise and the warming of the oceans in the simple….pdf

Sea level rise and the w arming o f t he oceans in the S imple O cean D ata Assimilation (SODA) ocean r eanalysis James A. Carton Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science , University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA Benjamin S . G iese Department of Oceanography , T exas A&M University , College Station, T exas, USA Semyon A. Grodsky Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science , University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA Received 23 November 2004; revised 10 March 2005; accepted 25 May 2005; published 9 September 2005. [ 1 ] A new reanalysis of the g lobal ocean circulation i s u sed t o d istinguish between the steric and ponents o f s ea level rise. Recent altimeter observations indicate a n increase i n t he rate of sea l evel rise during t he past decade to mm/yr , well above the centennial estimate o f 1 .5 – 2 mm/yr . This apparent increase could have resulted from enhanced melting o f continental ice o r from decadal changes in thermosteric and halosteric ef fects. The contribution from steric ef fects i s explored using t he new eddy- permitting S imple Ocean Data A ssimilation version 1 .2 () reanalysis of global temperature, salinity , and sea l evel spanning the period 1958 – 2001. The applicability of this ocean reanalysis for s ea level studies is evaluated paring s ubseasonal variability with a collection o f 2 0 tide gauge stat