Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes
Abstract Barystatic sea level rise (SLR) caused by the addition of freshwater to the ocean from melting ice can in principle be recorded by a reduction in seawater salinity, but detection of this signal has been hindered by sparse data coverage and the small trends compared to natural variability. H...
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Wiley
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101004 |
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| author | Aaron Bagnell Tim DeVries |
| author_facet | Aaron Bagnell Tim DeVries |
| author_sort | Aaron Bagnell |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Barystatic sea level rise (SLR) caused by the addition of freshwater to the ocean from melting ice can in principle be recorded by a reduction in seawater salinity, but detection of this signal has been hindered by sparse data coverage and the small trends compared to natural variability. Here, we develop an autoregressive machine learning method to estimate salinity changes in the global ocean from 2001 to 2019 that reduces uncertainties in ocean freshening trends by a factor of four compared to previous estimates. We find that the ocean mass rose by 13,000 ± 3,000 Gt from 2001 to 2019, implying a barystatic SLR of 2.0 ± 0.5 mm/yr. Combined with SLR of 1.3 ± 0.1 mm/yr due to ocean thermal expansion, these results suggest that global mean sea level rose by 3.4 ± 0.6 mm/yr from 2001 to 2019. These results provide an important validation of remote‐sensing measurements of ocean mass changes, global SLR, and global ice budgets. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-33c7de6cd04c4dcd90c43b7c87df5c3c |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 0094-8276 1944-8007 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Geophysical Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj-art-33c7de6cd04c4dcd90c43b7c87df5c3c2025-08-20T03:12:53ZengWileyGeophysical Research Letters0094-82761944-80072023-04-01507n/an/a10.1029/2022GL101004Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature ChangesAaron Bagnell0Tim DeVries1Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara CA USADepartment of Geography University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara CA USAAbstract Barystatic sea level rise (SLR) caused by the addition of freshwater to the ocean from melting ice can in principle be recorded by a reduction in seawater salinity, but detection of this signal has been hindered by sparse data coverage and the small trends compared to natural variability. Here, we develop an autoregressive machine learning method to estimate salinity changes in the global ocean from 2001 to 2019 that reduces uncertainties in ocean freshening trends by a factor of four compared to previous estimates. We find that the ocean mass rose by 13,000 ± 3,000 Gt from 2001 to 2019, implying a barystatic SLR of 2.0 ± 0.5 mm/yr. Combined with SLR of 1.3 ± 0.1 mm/yr due to ocean thermal expansion, these results suggest that global mean sea level rose by 3.4 ± 0.6 mm/yr from 2001 to 2019. These results provide an important validation of remote‐sensing measurements of ocean mass changes, global SLR, and global ice budgets.https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101004ocean salinityocean massglobal sea level risebarystatic sea level risethermosteric sea level riseclimate change |
| spellingShingle | Aaron Bagnell Tim DeVries Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes Geophysical Research Letters ocean salinity ocean mass global sea level rise barystatic sea level rise thermosteric sea level rise climate change |
| title | Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes |
| title_full | Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes |
| title_fullStr | Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes |
| title_full_unstemmed | Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes |
| title_short | Global Mean Sea Level Rise Inferred From Ocean Salinity and Temperature Changes |
| title_sort | global mean sea level rise inferred from ocean salinity and temperature changes |
| topic | ocean salinity ocean mass global sea level rise barystatic sea level rise thermosteric sea level rise climate change |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL101004 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT aaronbagnell globalmeansealevelriseinferredfromoceansalinityandtemperaturechanges AT timdevries globalmeansealevelriseinferredfromoceansalinityandtemperaturechanges |