RECENT CHANGE OF THERMOSTERIC SEA LEVEL AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE SEA LEVEL CHANGE MEASURED FROM SATELLITE ALTIMETRY

摘要

The rate of global mean sea level rise is estimated 2.93 mm/year based on JMA’s analysis of the satellite altimetry data. Thermal expansion of 0 – 3000 m ocean warming contributes 1.20 mm/year and shares 41% of total rising. A quarter of the thermal expansion occurred below 700 m layer. In early 2000’s, Argo float became a major instrument to observe temperatures. The impacts of Argo float on analysis are estimated by comparing estimations including/excluding Argo float data. The differences are within the analysis errors in most years. However, the differences estimated for 700 – 3000 m are larger than the analysis errors in the most recent years. It is caused by changes of observation distributions.