Editor's Summary

19 June 2008

Upper-ocean warming and sea-level rise

Changes in the climate system's energy budget are predominantly revealed in ocean temperatures and the associated thermal expansion contribution to sea-level rise. Climate models, however, do not reproduce the large decadal variability in globally averaged ocean heat content inferred from observations, even when volcanic and other variable climate forcings are included. Domingues et al. report improved estimates of near-global ocean heat content and thermal expansion for the upper ocean from 1950 to 2003, applying corrections to reduce systematic biases in the most common ocean temperature observations. Their ocean warming and thermal expansion trends for 1961 to 2003 are about 50 per cent larger than earlier estimates but about 40 per cent smaller for 1993 to 2003, consistent with the recognition that previously estimated rates for the 1990s were biased by instrumental errors. The authors add observational estimates of upper-ocean thermal expansion to other contributions to sea-level rise, and find that the sum of contributions from 1961 to 2003 is in good agreement with their updated estimate of near-global mean sea level.

Letter: Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise

Catia M. Domingues, John A. Church, Neil J. White, Peter J. Gleckler, Susan E. Wijffels, Paul M. Barker & Jeff R. Dunn

doi:10.1038/nature07080

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