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Identifying the causes of sea-level change

Abstract

Global mean sea-level change has increased from a few centimetres per century over recent millennia to a few tens of centimetres per century in recent decades. This tenfold increase in the rate of rise can be attributed to climate change through the melting of land ice and the thermal expansion of ocean water. As the present warming trend is expected to continue, global mean sea level will continue to rise. Here we review recent insights into past sea-level changes on decadal to millennial timescales and how they may help constrain future changes. We find that most studies constrain global mean sea-level rise to less than one metre over the twenty-first century, but departures from this global mean could reach several decimetres in many areas. We conclude that improving estimates of the spatial variability in future sea-level change is an important research target in coming years.

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Figure 1: Mean rate of sea-surface height change during October 1992 to May 2007, determined from satellite altimetry measurements.
Figure 2: Sea-level curves derived from tide-gauge data using the 'virtual station' method95.
Figure 3: Relative sea level (RSL) reconstructed from the geological record at the five localities shown in the inset.

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Acknowledgements

This article stemmed from a meeting hosted by the Geological Society of London in September 2008, and we express our gratitude to all who attended and particularly to those who gave presentations. We acknowledge support from the Geological Society, the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, the Royal Meteorological Society and the Challenger Society. This paper is a contribution to IGCP Project 495 (Late Quaternary Land–Ocean Interactions: Driving Mechanisms and Coastal Responses) and to the North and West Europe working group of the INQUA commission on Coastal and Marine Processes. Finally, we thank K. Lambeck and P. Woodworth for providing constructive feedback on the original version of this manuscript.

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Milne, G., Gehrels, W., Hughes, C. et al. Identifying the causes of sea-level change. Nature Geosci 2, 471–478 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo544

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