Figure

Observed and projected change in global mean sea level

Figure Created 17 Nov 2021 Published 25 Nov 2021 Last modified 19 Dec 2022

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Topics: Climate change adaptation Water and marine environment

This page was archived on 19 Dec 2022 with reason: Other (New version data-and-maps/figures/observed-change-in-global-mean-2 was published)

The left figure depicts the rise in global mean sea level from 1900 to 2020 based on two data sources. All values are relative to the average level of the period 1993-2010, during which the two datasets overlap. The red line (Palmer et al., 2021) shows the ensemble sea-level reconstruction (using five members) of sea level anomalies during 1900–2010 (Palmer et al., 2021; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abdaec#erlabdaecs2). The dark blue line (CMEMS) shows the filtered sea level anomalies corrected for the TOPEX-A instrumental drift (Ablain et al., 2017; WCRP Sea Level Budget Group, 2018), corrected for the GIA using the ICE5G-VM2 GIA model (Peltier, 2004), for the time series from 1993 to 2020. The right figure shows the global mean sea level projections (in meters), for 2020-2150, relative to the period 1995–2014, for five Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios: SSP1-1.9, SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5. Details of the sea-level projections are provided in Box TS.4 and section 9.6 of the Working Group 1 contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report. The scenarios are described in sections TS1.3 and 1.6 and Cross-Chapter Box 1.4 of the Working Group 1 contribution.

https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/observed-change-in-global-mean-1/fig01-129873-csi047-clim012_v3.eps/image_large

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Methodology:

For Palmer et al., 2021, the data is the result of an ensemble approach to quantify historical global mean sea-level (GMSL) rise based on tide gauge reconstructions. The approach combines the maximum internal uncertainty across the ensemble with an estimate of structural uncertainty to provide a conservative estimate of the total uncertainty. Comparisons of GMSL rise over the 20th century based on deltas and linear trends (and their respective uncertainties) are consistent with past Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments and show good agreement with satellite altimeter timeseries. Sensitivity tests show that the estimates of GMSL rise are robust to the choice of reference period and central estimate timeseries.
For the CMEMS data: Temporal evolution of globally averaged daily Mean Sea Level, as observed by satellites, without annual and semi-annual signals, corrected for the TOPEX-A instrumental drift (Ablain et al., 2017; WCRP Sea Level Budget Group, 2018), and corrected for the GIA using the ICE5G-VM2 GIA model (Peltier, 2004). 'Filtered' refers to 9-month low-pass filtered Mean Sea Level (red line) anomalies relative to the 1993-2012 mean.

Units:

mm and m

Rights:

EEA standard re-use policy: unless otherwise indicated, re-use of content on the EEA website for commercial or non-commercial purposes is permitted free of charge, provided that the source is acknowledged (https://www.eea.europa.eu/legal/copyright). Copyright holder: Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Universität Siegen.

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