11.3.2 Mean Sea Level Changes over the Past 100 to 200 Years
11.3.2.1 Mean sea level trends

Figure 11.8: Global mean sea level variations (light line) computed
from the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter data compared with the global
averaged sea surface temperature variations (dark line) for 1993 to 1998
(Cazenave et al., 1998, updated). The seasonal components have been removed
from both time-series. |
The primary source of information on secular trends in
global sea level during the past century is the tide gauge data set of the Permanent
Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) (Spencer and Woodworth, 1993). The tide gauge
measurement is of the level of the sea surface relative to that of the land
upon which the gauge is located and contains information on both the displacement
of the land and on changes in ocean volume (eustatic changes). The land displacement
may be of two types: that caused by active tectonics and that caused by glacial
rebound. Corrections for these effects are required if the change in ocean volume
is to be extracted from the tide gauge record. Both corrections are imperfectly
known and are based on sea level observations themselves, usually from long
geological records. Different strategies have been developed for dealing with
these corrections but differences remain that are not inconsequential (see Table
11.9).
The sea level records contain significant interannual and decadal variability
and long records are required in order to estimate reliable secular rates that
will be representative of the last century. In addition, sea level change is
spatially variable because of land movements and of changes in the ocean circulation.
Therefore, a good geographic distribution of observations is required. Neither
requirement is satisfied with the current tide gauge network and different strategies
have been developed to take these differences into consideration. Warrick et
al. (1996), Douglas (1995) and Smith et al. (2000) give recent reviews of the
subject, including discussions of the Northern Hemisphere geographical bias
in the historical data set.
In the absence of independent measurements of vertical land movements by advanced
geodetic techniques (Section 11.6.1), corrections
for movements are based on either geological data or geophysical modelling.
The former method uses geological evidence from locations adjacent to the gauges
to estimate the long-term relative sea level change which is assumed to be caused
primarily by land movements, from whatever cause. This is subtracted from the
gauge records to estimate the eustatic change for the past century. However,
this procedure may underestimate the real current eustatic change because the
observed geological data may themselves contain a long-term component of eustatic
sea level rise (Section 11.3.1). The latter method,
glacial rebound modelling, is also constrained by geological observations to
estimate earth response functions or ice load parameters, which may therefore
themselves contain a component of long-term eustatic sea level change unless
this component is specifically solved for (Section 11.3.1).
A further underestimate of the rate of sea level rise from the geological approach,
compared to that from glacial rebound models, will pertain in forebulge areas,
and especially the North American east coast, where the linear extrapolation
of geological data could result in an underestimate of the corrected rate of
sea level change for the past century typically by 0.3 mm/yr because the glacial
rebound signal is diminishing with time (Peltier, 2000). However, in areas remote
from the former ice sheets this bias will be considerably smaller.
Also, in adding recent mass into the oceans, most studies have assumed that
it is distributed uniformly and have neglected the Earth�s elastic and
gravitational response to the changed water loading (analogous to glacio-hydro-isostatic
effect). This will have the effect of reducing the observed rise at continental
margin sites from ongoing mass contributions by as much as 30% (cf. Nakiboglu
and Lambeck, 1991).
Table 11.9 summarises estimates of the corrected
sea level trends for the past century. Estimates cover a wide range as a result
of different assumptions and methods for calculating the rate of vertical land
movement, of different selections of gauge records for analysis, and of different
requirements for minimum record length.

Figure 11.9: Ranges of uncertainty for the average rate of sea level
rise from 1910 to 1990 and the estimated contributions from different processes. |
There have been several more studies since the SAR of trends observed in particular
regions. Woodworth et al. (1999) provided a partial update to Shennan and Woodworth
(1992), suggesting that sea level change in the North Sea region has been about
1 mm/yr during the past century. Lambeck et al. (1998) combined coastal tide
gauge data from Fennoscandinavia together with lake level records and postglacial
rebound models to estimate an average regional rise for the past century of
1.1 ± 0.2 mm/yr. Studies of the North American east coast have been particularly
concerned with the spatial dependence of trends associated with the Laurentian
forebulge. Peltier (1996) concluded a current rate of order 1.9 ± 0.6
mm/yr, larger than the 1.5 mm/yr obtained by Gornitz (1995), who used the geological
data approach, and Mitrovica and Davis (1995), who employed Post Glacial Rebound
(PGR) modelling. Note that the observations of thermal expansion (Section
11.2.1.1) indicate a higher rate of sea level rise over recent decades in
the sub-tropical gyres of the North Atlantic (i.e., off the North American east
coast) than the higher latitude sub-polar gyre. Thus the differences between
three lower European values compared with the higher North American values may
reflect a real regional difference (with spatial variations in regional sea
level change being perhaps several tenths of a millimetre per year � see
also Section 11.5.2). In China, relative sea level
is rising at about 2 mm/yr in the south but less than 0.5 mm/yr in the north
(National Bureau of Marine Management, 1992), with an estimated average of the
whole coastline of 1.6 mm/yr (Zhen and Wu, 1993) and with attempts to remove
the spatially dependent component of vertical land movement yielding an average
of 2.0 mm/yr (Shi, 1996). The two longest records from Australia (both in excess
of 80 years in length and not included in Douglas, 1997) are from Sydney and
Fremantle, on opposite sides of the continent. They show observed rates of relative
sea level rise of 0.86 ± 0.12 mm/yr and 1.38 ± 0.18 mm/yr over
the periods 1915 to 1998 and 1897 to 1998 (Mitchell et al., 2000), corresponding
to approximately 1.26 mm/yr and 1.73 mm/yr after glacial rebound correction
using the Peltier ICE-4G/M2 model, or 1.07 mm/yr and 1.55 mm/yr using the corrections
of Lambeck and Nakada (1990).
There have been only two analyses of global sea level change based on the PSMSL
data set published since the SAR. Douglas (1997) provided an update to Douglas
(1991) and applied the PGR model of Tushingham and Peltier (1991) to a selected
set of twenty-four long tide gauge records, grouped into nine geographical areas,
with minimum record length 60 years and average length 83 years. However, the
only Southern Hemisphere sites included in this solution were from Argentina
and New Zealand. The overall global average of 1.8 ± 0.1 mm/yr agreed
with the 1991 analysis, with considerable consistency between area-average trends.
The standard error of the global rate was derived from the standard deviation
of regional trends, assuming that temporal and spatial variability is uncorrelated
between regions. Peltier and Jiang (1997) used essentially the same set of stations
as Douglas and a new model for postglacial rebound.
From Table 11.9 one can see that there are six
global estimates determined with the use of PGR corrections derived from global
models of isostatic adjustment, spanning a range from 1.4 mm/yr (Mitrovica and
Davis, 1995; Davis and Mitrovica, 1996) to 2.4 mm/yr (Peltier and Tushingham,
1989, 1991). We consider that these five are consistent within the systematic
uncertainty of the PGR models, which may have a range of uncertainty of 0.5
mm/yr depending on earth structure parametrization employed (Mitrovica and Davis,
1995). The average rate of the five estimates is 1.8 mm/yr. There are two other
global analyses, of Gornitz and Lebedeff (1987) and Nakiboglu and Lambeck (1991),
which yield estimates of 1.2 mm/yr, lower than the first group. Because of the
issues raised above with regard to the geological data method for land movement
correction, the value of Gornitz and Lebedeff may be underestimated by up to
a few tenths of a millimetre per year, although such considerations do not affect
the method of Nakiboglu and Lambeck. The differences between the former five
and latter two analyses reflect the analysis methods, in particular the differences
in corrections for land movements and in selections of tide gauges used, including
the effect of any spatial variation in thermal expansion. However, all the discrepancies
which could arise as a consequence of different analysis methods remain to be
more thoroughly investigated. On the basis of the published literature, we therefore
cannot rule out an average rate of sea level rise of as little as 1.0 mm/yr
during the 20th century. For the upper bound, we adopt a limit of 2.0 mm/yr,
which includes all recent global estimates with some allowance for systematic
uncertainty. As with other ranges (see Box 11.1),
we do not imply that the central value is the best estimate.
|