PHY-03 Sea level rise: understanding, observing, and modelling
Updating sea-level reconstruction since 1900
Jinping Wang* , Frontier Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, People’s Republic of China.
John A. Church, Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052, Australia.
Xuebin Zhang, Centre for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research (CSHOR), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, Hobart, Australia.
Xianyao Chen, Frontier Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, Key Laboratory of Physical Oceanography, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, People’s Republic of China.

Sea-level rise integrates the responses of several components (ocean thermal expansion, mass loss from glaciers and ice sheets, terrestrial water storage). Before the satellite era, global sea-level reconstructions depend on tide-gauge records and ocean observations. However, the available global mean sea level (GMSL) reconstructions using different methods indicate a spread in sea-level trend over 1900-2015 (1.3~2.0 mm yr-1). With the improved understanding of the causes of sea-level change, here we update the original Church and White (2011) reconstruction by using the latest observations, taking the sea-level fingerprints, dynamic sea level (DSL) climate change pattern and local vertical land motion (VLM) into account. The updated trend of GMSL of 1.6 ± 0.2 mm yr-1 (90% confidence level) over 1900-2020 is consistent with the sum of contributions of 1.5 ± 0.2 mm yr-1, lower than 1.8 ± 0.2 mm yr-1 from original reconstruction. The lower trend from the updated reconstruction is mainly due to including residual VLM correction on the unevenly distributed tide gauge stations. Including sea-level fingerprints and DSL climate change pattern in reconstruction improves the consistency with the sum of contribution in terms of 30-year running trend over the 20th century. The update reconstruction shows improved skill in reproducing linear trend of the tide gauge observations, with comparable mean trend of 1.5 ± 2.4 mm yr-1 from observation and 1.5 ± 1.4 mm yr-1 from the update reconstruction among all tide gauge locations.