The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models
Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficu...
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ftzenodo:oai:zenodo.org:7348075 2023-05-15T13:59:19+02:00 The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models Grinsted, Aslak Bamber, Jonathan L Bingham, Rory Buzzard, Sammie Nias, Isabel Ng, Kelvin Weeks, Jennifer 2022-08-08 https://zenodo.org/record/7348075 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696 unknown info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/694188/ https://zenodo.org/communities/globalmass https://zenodo.org/record/7348075 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696 oai:zenodo.org:7348075 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode info:eu-repo/semantics/article publication-article 2022 ftzenodo https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696 2023-03-10T23:52:32Z Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty-first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Ice Sheet Zenodo Antarctic Greenland Earth's Future 10 10 |
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description |
Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty-first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Grinsted, Aslak Bamber, Jonathan L Bingham, Rory Buzzard, Sammie Nias, Isabel Ng, Kelvin Weeks, Jennifer |
spellingShingle |
Grinsted, Aslak Bamber, Jonathan L Bingham, Rory Buzzard, Sammie Nias, Isabel Ng, Kelvin Weeks, Jennifer The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models |
author_facet |
Grinsted, Aslak Bamber, Jonathan L Bingham, Rory Buzzard, Sammie Nias, Isabel Ng, Kelvin Weeks, Jennifer |
author_sort |
Grinsted, Aslak |
title |
The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models |
title_short |
The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models |
title_full |
The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models |
title_fullStr |
The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Transient Sea Level Response to External Forcing in CMIP6 Models |
title_sort |
transient sea level response to external forcing in cmip6 models |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://zenodo.org/record/7348075 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696 |
geographic |
Antarctic Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Greenland |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/694188/ https://zenodo.org/communities/globalmass https://zenodo.org/record/7348075 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696 oai:zenodo.org:7348075 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696 |
container_title |
Earth's Future |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
10 |
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1766267851608424448 |