Published September 1, 2023 | Version v0.0
Dataset Open

Mean sea level fields used within the GTSMip simulations

Creators

  • 1. Deltares | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
  • 2. Deltares | Mercator Ocean
  • 3. KNMI

Description

  • TotalSeaLevel_MapsSROCC_rcp85_Perc50_zero1986to2005dflow_extrap.nc provides mean sea level fields using as reference period. Sea level fields are computed from the sum of different contributors, including dynamic changes, thermal expansion, changes in gravitational fields, and contribution from glaciers and ice sheets. The different contributions are computed and combined using the probabilistic model described in Le Bars (2018). For the period 1950-2016, we use products based on observations for the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets (Mouginot et al., 2019; Rignot et al., 2019), the glaciers (Marzeion et al., 2015), thermal expansion between 0 and 2000 m depth (Levitus et al., 2012), and climate-driven water storage (Humphrey & Gudmundsson, 2019). The ice sheets are assumed to be in equilibrium before 1979 for Antarctica and 1972 for Greenland because no data are available before these dates. For the period 2016-2050 we use sea-level rise projections based on the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the RCP8.5 scenario (Church et al., 2013), very similar to the SSP585 scenario used by the models as above. The redistribution of water in the ocean due to wind changes and local steric effects is taken from the CMIP5 models (i.e. ‘zos’ field for the entire period). The fingerprints for the ice sheets, glaciers and land water storage are from the AR5 assessment, and include the gravitational, rotational and Earth elastic response. For the dynamics of the Antarctic contribution we use the re-evaluation presented in the IPCC’s Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) (Oppenheimer et al., 2019). Additionally, we add the glacial isostatic adjustment from the ICE-6G model (Peltier et al., 2015) but do not consider other processes of vertical land motion, such as subsidence or tectonics. The uncertainty in mean sea level is removed by selecting the median of the sea level observations and projections distributions. Note that at the time the GTSM simulation were carried out the SLR projections based on CMIP6 were not yet available. To serve as input to GTSM, the files are converted from a water level to a pressure.
  • ERAInterim_average_msl_neg_19491215_19510101.nc  provides a vertical reference  based on the mean sea-level pressure field (MSLP) over 1986–2005 as calculated with GTSMv3.0 forced by ERA-Interim. This corrections is used to make the definition of MSL in GTSM more consistent with the vertical reference used in the SLR field .

Files

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md5:b68102c8a533aafa8a71cb71c3ae520d
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Additional details

References

  • Muis S, Irazoqui Apecechea M, Dullaart J, de Lima Rego J, Madsen KS, Su J, Yan K and Verlaan M (2020) A High-Resolution Global Dataset of Extreme Sea Levels, Tides, and Storm Surges, Including Future Projections. Front. Mar. Sci. 7:263. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2020.00263