New estimate of the current rate of sea level rise from a sea level budget approach

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Dieng, Habib, Boubacar, Cazenave, Anny, Meyssignac, B, Ablain, M
• Other Authors: Laboratoire d'études en Géophysique et océanographie spatiales (LEGOS), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; Greenland
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04632017; https://hal.science/hal-04632017/document; https://hal.science/hal-04632017/file/Dieng_GRL_2017.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/2017gl073308

International audience We revisit the global mean sea level (GMSL) budget during the whole altimetry era (January 1993 to December 2015) using a large number of data sets. The budget approach allows quantifying the TOPEX A altimeter drift (amounting 1.5 ± 0.5 mm/yr over 1993–1998). Accounting for this correction and using ensemble means for the GMSL and components lead to closure of the sea level budget (trend of the residual time series being 0.0 ± 0.22 mm/yr). The new GMSL rate over January 1993 to December 2015 is now close to 3.0 mm/yr. An important increase of the GMSL rate, of 0.8 mm/yr, is found during the second half of the altimetry era (2004–2015) compared to the 1993–2004 time span, mostly due to Greenland mass loss increase and also to slight increase of all other components of the budget.