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Regional patterns of observed sea level change: insights from a 1/4° global ocean/sea-ice hindcast

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Abstract

A global eddy-admitting ocean/sea-ice simulation driven over 1958–2004 by daily atmospheric forcing is used to evaluate spatial patterns of sea level change between 1993 and 2001. In the present study, no data assimilation is performed. The model is based on the Nucleus for European Models of the Ocean code at the 1/4° resolution, and the simulation was performed without data assimilation by the DRAKKAR project. We show that this simulation correctly reproduces the observed regional sea level trend patterns computed using satellite altimetry data over 1993–2001. Generally, we find that regional sea level change is best simulated in the tropical band and northern oceans, whereas the Southern Ocean is poorly simulated. We examine the respective contributions of steric and bottom pressure changes to the total regional sea level changes. For the steric component, we analyze separately the contributions of temperature and salinity changes as well as upper and lower ocean contributions. Generally, the model results show that most regional sea level changes arise from temperature changes in the upper 750 m of the ocean. However, contributions of salinity changes and deep steric changes can be locally important. We also propose a map of ocean bottom pressure changes. Finally, we assess the robustness of such a model by comparing this simulation with a second simulation performed by MERCATOR-Ocean based on the same core model, but differing by its short length of integration (1992–2001) and its surface forcing data set. The long simulation presents better performance over 1993–2001 than the short simulation, especially in the Southern Ocean where a long adjustment time seems to be needed.

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Acknowledgements

This study was carried out under the support of the Groupe Mission Mercator Coriolis (GMMC), and one of us (AL) benefited from a CNES postdoc grant. Computations for the short-MERCATOR experiment were performed on the IBM SP4 of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Support to DRAKKAR comes from various grants and programs listed hereafter: French national programs GMMC, PATOM, and PNEDC; PICS 2475 from Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers (INSU) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Kiel SFB460 and CLIVAR-marin (03F0377A/B) supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. Computations for the long-DRAKKAR experiment were performed at Institut du Développement et des Ressources en Informatique Scientifique (IDRIS). Partial support from the European Commission under Contract SIP3-CT-2003-502885 (MERSEA project) is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Jean-Marc Molines for providing the DRAKKAR data and Anny Cazenave for the helpful comments. We thank the two reviewers for their thorough reviews which led to significant improvement of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CNES, 18 Avenue Edouard Belin, 31 401, Toulouse Cedex 9, France

    Alix Lombard

  2. MGC/MERCATOR-Ocean, 8–10 rue Hermès, Parc Technologique du Canal, 31520, Ramonville-St-Agne, France

    Gilles Garric

  3. MEOM-LEGI, Laboratoire des Ecoulements Géophysiques et Industriels, CNRS, UJF, INPG, BP53, 38041, Grenoble Cedex 9, France

    Thierry Penduff

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  1. Alix Lombard
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  2. Gilles Garric
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Correspondence to Alix Lombard.

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Responsible editor: Anthony C. Hirst

In memory of my little brother Jean-Eudes, whose thirst for science filled out the rich discussions we had about my investigations and his job as user-service provider for MERCATOR-Ocean.

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Lombard, A., Garric, G. & Penduff, T. Regional patterns of observed sea level change: insights from a 1/4° global ocean/sea-ice hindcast. Ocean Dynamics 59, 433–449 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-008-0161-6

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