Sea level change in response to melting of ice sheets

• Main Authors: Brunnabend, Sandra-Esther, Schröter, Jens, Ivchenko, Vladimir, Kusche, Jürgen, Rietbroek, Roelof
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica; glaciers; Greenland; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic; Sea ice; West Antarctica; Alaska
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/33782/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.42187

Relative sea level change is estimated with a combination of methods. First a melting scenario with reasonable fresh water input from Greenland ice sheet, glaciers in Alaska or West-Antarctica between 50 and 200 Gt per year are assumed and used as sources in a global Finite Element Sea-Ice Ocean Model (FESOM). The model calculates the evolution of ocean volume and mass using a non linear free sea surface. Other driving forces are atmospheric surface fluxes from NCEP reanalysis and river runoff from hydrologic modelling. The resulting sea level change due to inflow of mass, steric expansion and redistribution as a consequence of ocean dynamic reactions are calculated relative to the geoid. Geoid changes as a response to the changed mass distribution and the associated uplift are calculated in a second step and are augmented by rotational feedback. Finally glacio-isostatic adjustment is used to correct for ongoing vertical movements. A significant fraction of the sea level variations at the North Atlantic coasts can already be explained by our reference experiment (no extra melting prescribed). Including ice sheet melting substantially improves the comparison between modelled sea level and PSMSL tide gauge records.