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Review
. 2020 Sep;58(3):e2019RG000672.
doi: 10.1029/2019RG000672.

Understanding of Contemporary Regional Sea-Level Change and the Implications for the Future

Benjamin D Hamlington  1 , Alex S Gardner  1 , Erik Ivins  1 , Jan T M Lenaerts  2 , J T Reager  1 , David S Trossman  3 , Edward D Zaron  4 , Surendra Adhikari  1 , Anthony Arendt  5 , Andy Aschwanden  6 , Brian D Beckley  7 , David P S Bekaert  1 , Geoffrey Blewitt  8 , Lambert Caron  1 , Don P Chambers  9 , Hrishikesh A Chandanpurkar  1 , Knut Christianson  10 , Beata Csatho  11 , Richard I Cullather  12 , Robert M DeConto  13 , John T Fasullo  14 , Thomas Frederikse  1 , Jeffrey T Freymueller  15 , Daniel M Gilford  16 , Manuela Girotto  17 , William C Hammond  8 , Regine Hock  18 , Nicholas Holschuh  10 , Robert E Kopp  17 , Felix Landerer  1 , Eric Larour  1 , Dimitris Menemenlis  1 , Mark Merrifield  19 , Jerry X Mitrovica  20 , R Steven Nerem  21 , Isabel J Nias  12   21 , Veronica Nieves  22 , Sophie Nowicki  21 , Kishore Pangaluru  23 , Christopher G Piecuch  24 , Richard D Ray  21 , David R Rounce  18 , Nicole-Jeanne Schlegel  1 , Hélène Seroussi  1 , Manoochehr Shirzaei  25 , William V Sweet  26 , Isabella Velicogna  22 , Nadya Vinogradova  27 , Thomas Wahl  28 , David N Wiese  1 , Michael J Willis  29
Affiliations
Review

Understanding of Contemporary Regional Sea-Level Change and the Implications for the Future

Benjamin D Hamlington et al. Rev Geophys. 2020 Sep.

Abstract

Global sea level provides an important indicator of the state of the warming climate, but changes in regional sea level are most relevant for coastal communities around the world. With improvements to the sea-level observing system, the knowledge of regional sea-level change has advanced dramatically in recent years. Satellite measurements coupled with in situ observations have allowed for comprehensive study and improved understanding of the diverse set of drivers that lead to variations in sea level in space and time. Despite the advances, gaps in the understanding of contemporary sea-level change remain and inhibit the ability to predict how the relevant processes may lead to future change. These gaps arise in part due to the complexity of the linkages between the drivers of sea-level change. Here we review the individual processes which lead to sea-level change and then describe how they combine and vary regionally. The intent of the paper is to provide an overview of the current state of understanding of the processes that cause regional sea-level change and to identify and discuss limitations and uncertainty in our understanding of these processes. Areas where the lack of understanding or gaps in knowledge inhibit the ability to provide the needed information for comprehensive planning efforts are of particular focus. Finally, a goal of this paper is to highlight the role of the expanded sea-level observation network-particularly as related to satellite observations-in the improved scientific understanding of the contributors to regional sea-level change.

Keywords: remote sensing; satellite observations; sea level.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Satellite altimeter‐measured regional sea‐level trend patterns from (top) 1993–2005, (middle) 2006–2018, and (bottom) 1993–2018. Black contours and gray shading denote areas where the estimated trend is not significant at the 95% confidence level.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Time series and spatial patterns of ice sheet mass changes as measured by GRACE (2002–2017, Wise et al., 2018). In the upper plot, the solid lines show the GRACE mass balance from Antarctica (blue) and Greenland (red), with uncertainties contoured in the same color, and the three dotted lines show the lower, middle, and upper estimates of ice sheet mass loss in the business‐as‐usual, high‐emissions RCP8.5 future scenario (IPCC, 2013). The numbers in the upper plot give the best linear fit for each ice sheet. The lower plots show the linear trend in units of cm water equivalent per year squared over the 2002–2017 period.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Contribution to relative sea‐level rise (mm/year) from 2002 to 2015 from (a) Antarctica Ice Sheet mass loss, (b) Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss, (c) terrestrial water storage variability, and (d) glacier mass loss. Adapted from Adhikari and Ivins (2016).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Time series of cumulative mass anomalies from GRACE for all primary glacier regions of the Randolph Glacier Inventory, except the Greenland and Antarctic periphery, covering the time period from 2002 to 2017. From Wouters et al. (2019).
Figure 5
Figure 5
An example of trends in land water storage from GRACE observations, April 2002 to November 2014. Glaciers and ice sheets are excluded. Shown are the global map (gigatons per year), zonal trends, and full time series of land water storage (in mm yr−1 SLE). Following methods details in Reager et al., (2016), GRACE shows a total gain in land water storage during the 2002–2014 period, corresponding to a sea‐level trend of −0.33 ± 0.16 mm yr−1 SLE. These trends include all human‐driven and climate‐driven processes in Table 2 and can be used to close the land water budget over the study period. From Reager et al. (2016), reprinted with permission from AAAS.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Global ocean heat content time series and trends for Green's functions and observational estimates relative to 2006–2015 for different ocean depths: (a) 0–700 m, (b) 0–2000 m, and (c) below 2000 m. From Zanna et al. (2019).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Rates of vertical land motion from GNSS observations made at over 6,000 stations across North America. VLM field is derived using MIDAS velocities in the ITRF 2014 reference frame and GPS imaging interpolation (Blewitt et al., 2018; Hammond et al., 2016). Note that logarithmic color scale is used to highlight both large and small VLM signals, with red representing upward and blue downward motion in mm/yr.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Change in current average annual minor tidal flood frequency relative to 1960–1980 average.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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