The certitude of a global sea level acceleration during the satellite altimeter era

• Main Authors: İz H. Bâki, Shum C.K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2020-05-01
• Series: Journal of Geodetic Science
• Subjects: satellite altimetry; global sea level acceleration; tide gauge; omission error; global sea level budget; climate change
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/jogs-2020-0101

Recent studies reported a uniform global sea level acceleration during the satellite altimetry era (1993–2017) by analyzing globally averaged satellite altimetry measurements. Here, we discuss potential omission errors that were not thoroughly addressed in detecting and estimating the reported global sea level acceleration in these studies. Our analyses results demonstrate that the declared acceleration in recent studies can also be explained equally well by alternative kinematic models based on previously well-established multi-decadal global mean sea level variations of various origins, which suggests prudence before declaring the presence of an accelerating global mean sea level with confidence during the satellite altimetry era.