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Research Article

Reassessment of 20th century global mean sea level rise

Sönke Dangendorf, Marta Marcos, Guy Wöppelmann, Clinton P. Conrad, Thomas Frederikse, and Riccardo Riva
  1. aResearch Institute for Water and Environment, University of Siegen, 57076, Siegen, Germany;
  2. bInstituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados (IMEDEA) [Instituto mixto entre la Universidad de las Islas Baleares (UIB) y el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)], E-07190, Esporles, Spain;
  3. cLittoral Environnement et Sociétés (LIENSs), Universite de La Rochelle-CNRS, 17000, La Rochelle, France;
  4. dCentre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics, University of Oslo, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway;
  5. eDepartment of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Delft University of Technology, 2628CN, Delft, The Netherlands

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PNAS first published May 22, 2017; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1616007114
Sönke Dangendorf
aResearch Institute for Water and Environment, University of Siegen, 57076, Siegen, Germany;
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  • For correspondence: soenke.dangendorf@uni-siegen.de
Marta Marcos
bInstituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados (IMEDEA) [Instituto mixto entre la Universidad de las Islas Baleares (UIB) y el Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)], E-07190, Esporles, Spain;
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Guy Wöppelmann
cLittoral Environnement et Sociétés (LIENSs), Universite de La Rochelle-CNRS, 17000, La Rochelle, France;
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Clinton P. Conrad
dCentre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics, University of Oslo, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway;
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Thomas Frederikse
eDepartment of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Delft University of Technology, 2628CN, Delft, The Netherlands
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Riccardo Riva
eDepartment of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Delft University of Technology, 2628CN, Delft, The Netherlands
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  1. Edited by Anny Cazenave, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse Cedex 9, France, and approved April 17, 2017 (received for review September 28, 2016)

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Significance

Estimates of global mean sea level (GMSL) before the advent of satellite altimetry vary widely, mainly because of the uneven coverage and limited temporal sampling of tide gauge records, which track local sea level rather than the global mean. Here we introduce an approach that combines recent advances in solid Earth and geoid corrections for individual tide gauges with improved knowledge about their geographical representation of ocean internal variability. Our assessment yields smaller trends before 1990 than previously reported, leading to a larger overall acceleration; identifies three major explanations for differences with previous estimates; and reconciles observational GMSL estimates with the sum of individually modeled contributions from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 database for the entire 20th century.

Abstract

The rate at which global mean sea level (GMSL) rose during the 20th century is uncertain, with little consensus between various reconstructions that indicate rates of rise ranging from 1.3 to 2 mm⋅y−1. Here we present a 20th-century GMSL reconstruction computed using an area-weighting technique for averaging tide gauge records that both incorporates up-to-date observations of vertical land motion (VLM) and corrections for local geoid changes resulting from ice melting and terrestrial freshwater storage and allows for the identification of possible differences compared with earlier attempts. Our reconstructed GMSL trend of 1.1 ± 0.3 mm⋅y−1 (1σ) before 1990 falls below previous estimates, whereas our estimate of 3.1 ± 1.4 mm⋅y−1 from 1993 to 2012 is consistent with independent estimates from satellite altimetry, leading to overall acceleration larger than previously suggested. This feature is geographically dominated by the Indian Ocean–Southern Pacific region, marking a transition from lower-than-average rates before 1990 toward unprecedented high rates in recent decades. We demonstrate that VLM corrections, area weighting, and our use of a common reference datum for tide gauges may explain the lower rates compared with earlier GMSL estimates in approximately equal proportion. The trends and multidecadal variability of our GMSL curve also compare well to the sum of individual contributions obtained from historical outputs of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5. This, in turn, increases our confidence in process-based projections presented in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

  • global mean sea level
  • tide gauges
  • vertical land motion
  • fingerprints
  • climate change

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: soenke.dangendorf{at}uni-siegen.de.
  • Author contributions: S.D. and M.M. designed research; S.D. performed research; S.D., M.M., G.W., C.P.C., T.F., and R.R. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; S.D. analyzed data; and S.D., M.M., G.W., C.P.C., T.F., and R.R. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1616007114/-/DCSupplemental.

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20th century global mean sea level rise
Sönke Dangendorf, Marta Marcos, Guy Wöppelmann, Clinton P. Conrad, Thomas Frederikse, Riccardo Riva
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2017, 201616007; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1616007114

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20th century global mean sea level rise
Sönke Dangendorf, Marta Marcos, Guy Wöppelmann, Clinton P. Conrad, Thomas Frederikse, Riccardo Riva
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2017, 201616007; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1616007114
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