New estimate of the current rate of sea level rise from a sea level budget approach

摘要

We revisit the global mean sea level (GMSL) budget during the whole altimetry era (January 1993 to December 2015) using a large number of data sets. The budget approach allows quantifying the TOPEX A altimeter drift (amounting 1.5 +/- 0.5 mm/yr over 1993-1998). Accounting for this correction and using ensemble means for the GMSL and components lead to closure of the sea level budget (trend of the residual time series being 0.0 +/- 0.22 mm/yr). The new GMSL rate over January 1993 to December 2015 is now close to 3.0 mm/yr. An important increase of the GMSL rate, of 0.8 mm/yr, is found during the second half of the altimetry era (2004-2015) compared to the 1993-2004 time span, mostly due to Greenland mass loss increase and also to slight increase of all other components of the budget.