Steric sea level variability (1993-2010) in an ensemble of ocean reanalyses and objective analyses - INSU - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers Access content directly
Journal Articles Climate Dynamics Year : 2017

Steric sea level variability (1993-2010) in an ensemble of ocean reanalyses and objective analyses

Andrea Storto
  • Function : Author
Simona Masina
  • Function : Author
Magdalena Balmaseda
Tanguy Szekely
  • Function : Author
Ichiro Fukumori
  • Function : Author
Gael Forget
  • Function : Author
You-Soon Chang
  • Function : Author
Simon A. Good
  • Function : Author
Armin Köhl
  • Function : Author
Guillaume Vernieres
  • Function : Author
Nicolas Ferry
K. Andrew Peterson
  • Function : Author
Masayoshi Ishii
  • Function : Author
Shuhei Masuda
  • Function : Author
Yosuke Fujii
  • Function : Author
Takahiro Toyoda
  • Function : Author
Yonghong Yin
  • Function : Author
Maria Valdivieso
  • Function : Author
Tim Boyer
  • Function : Author
Tony Lee
  • Function : Author
Ou Wang
  • Function : Author
Patrick Heimback
  • Function : Author
Anthony Rosati
  • Function : Author
Robin Kovach
  • Function : Author
Fabrice Hernandez
  • Function : Author
Matthew J. Martin
  • Function : Author
Masafumi Kamachi
  • Function : Author
Tsurane Kuragano
  • Function : Author
Kristian Mogensen
  • Function : Author
Oscar Alves
  • Function : Author
Keith Haines
  • Function : Author
Xiaochun Wang
  • Function : Author
  • PersonId : 769517
  • IdRef : 187073686

Abstract

Quantifying the effect of the seawater density changes on sea level variability is of crucial importance for climate change studies, as the sea level cumulative rise can be regarded as both an important climate change indicator and a possible danger for human activities in coastal areas. In this work, as part of the Ocean Reanalysis Intercomparison Project, the global and regional steric sea level changes are estimated and compared from an ensemble of 16 ocean reanalyses and 4 objective analyses. These estimates are initially compared with a satellite-derived (altimetry minus gravimetry) dataset for a short period (2003-2010). The ensemble mean exhibits a significant high correlation at both global and regional scale, and the ensemble of ocean reanalyses outperforms that of objective analyses, in particular in the Southern Ocean. The reanalysis ensemble mean thus represents a valuable tool for further analyses, although large uncertainties remain for the inter-annual trends. Within the extended intercomparison period that spans the altimetry era (1993-2010), we find that the ensemble of reanalyses and objective analyses are in good agreement, and both detect a trend of the global steric sea level of 1.0 and 1.1 ± 0.05 mm/year, respectively. However, the spread among the products of the halosteric component trend exceeds the mean trend itself, questioning the reliability of its estimate. This is related to the scarcity of salinity observations before the Argo era. Furthermore, the impact of deep ocean layers is non-negligible on the steric sea level variability (22 and 12 % for the layers below 700 and 1500 m of depth, respectively), although the small deep ocean trends are not significant with respect to the products spread.

Dates and versions

insu-03684928 , version 1 (01-06-2022)

Identifiers

Cite

Andrea Storto, Simona Masina, Magdalena Balmaseda, Stéphanie Guinehut, Yan Xue, et al.. Steric sea level variability (1993-2010) in an ensemble of ocean reanalyses and objective analyses. Climate Dynamics, 2017, 49, pp.709-729. ⟨10.1007/s00382-015-2554-9⟩. ⟨insu-03684928⟩
14 View
0 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More