Evidence for a differential sea level rise between hemispheres over the twentieth century

Tide gauge records are the primary source of sea level information over multidecadal to century timescales. A critical issue in using this type of data to determine global climate-related contributions to sea level change concerns the vertical motion of the land upon which the gauges are grounded. H...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Wöppelmann, Guy, Marcos, Marta, Santamaría-Gómez, Álvaro, Martín Míguez, Belén, Bouin, Marie-Noëlle, Gravelle, Médéric
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/126401
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/126401
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Climate change
Geodesy
GPS
land motion
Sea level
tide gauge
Descripción
Sumario:Tide gauge records are the primary source of sea level information over multidecadal to century timescales. A critical issue in using this type of data to determine global climate-related contributions to sea level change concerns the vertical motion of the land upon which the gauges are grounded. Here we use observations from the Global Positioning System for the correction of this vertical land motion. As a result, the spatial coherence in the rates of sea level change during the twentieth century is highlighted at the local and the regional scales, ultimately revealing a clearly distinct behavior between the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres with values of 2.0 mm/yr and 1.1 mm/yr, respectively. Our findings challenge the widely accepted value of global sea level rise for the twentieth century. Key Points Detection of a spatial pattern between hemispheres in secular sea level rates Use of most advanced methods and data for studying secular trends in sea level Vertical land motion: An obstacle to detecting fingerprints in sea level change ©2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.