CLOSING THE SEA LEVEL BUDGET ON A REGIONAL SCALE:

TRENDS AND VARIABILITY ON THE NORTHWESTERN

EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL SHELF
Thomas Frederikse1, Riccardo Riva1, Marcel Kleinherenbrink 1, Yoshihide Wada2,3,4,5, Michiel van den Broeke6, and
Ben Marzeion7
Journal of Geophysical Research letters
Published in 2016

1
Department of Geoscience, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
2
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, USA
3
Center for Climate System Research, Columbia University, New York, USA
4
Department of Physical Oceanography, Utrecht University, Netherlands
5
International Institute for Applied System Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria
6
Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Netherlands
7
Institute of Geography, University of Bremen, Germany
AGENDA

Introduction

Data and Models

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

PRESENTATION TITLE 2
Many studies have been conducted to explain the investigated sea level
global trends over the past couples of decades by figuring into the
sources of sea level changes. According the time scales that longer
than satellite era, understanding the sea level budget on regional scales
is a few studies remaining. Then, the field of study is opened and
challenged for future research.
In this article, the researchers present a study of sea level budget at the
Northwestern European continental shelf over the period 1958-2014.
the determination of this location according to the dense of tide gauge
alongside of the coastal zone and also frequent hydrographic
measurement in the surrounding northeast Atlantic Ocean.
The decadal variability has also been extensively studied and has been
linked to wind-driven coastally trapped waves which can address large
distances along the shelf edges. Then, this study applied a combination
of models and observations to determine the influence of mass and
steric effects on sea level trends and interannual to decadal variability.
To estimate vertical land motion/movement (VLM) GPS observations
are applied which cannot be explained by Glacial isostatic Adjustment
(GIA) and Present-Day mass redistribution effects. The sea level
model, then, is compared to tide gauge observations in the North Sea
and along the Norwegian coast as the highlight of study area.
INTRODUCTION 3
 Figure beside exhibits the tide gauge records alongside the regions of
North Sea coast (red dot), Norway coast (green dot), and Ocean Weather
Station Mike (OCWSM) (blue dot).
Tide gauge stations record obtained from the Permanent Service for Mean
Sea Level (PSMSL) for 50-year of duration period. Wind stress and
atmospheric on sea level are removed to reduce the interstation
variability.
Meanwhile the satellite altimetry observations are according to AVISO’s
multimission gridded sea level anomalies (SLA) product.

2.1 Mass Signals and Fingerprints

Mass exchange between land and ocean causes a spatial nonuniform
relative sea level (RSL) response due to changes in the geoid and eustatic
sea level, and deformation of the solid earth.
This analysis is considering mass contribution on glaciers, Greenland and
Antarctic ice sheets, and terrestrial water storage (TWS). Where:
Glaciers model based on mass balance of Marzeion et.al., (2015)
Greenland ice sheets estimate for discharge listed in van de Broeke et.al.,
(2016), and Antarctic is based on GRACE
dam retention, natural variability, and groundwater depletion as TWS
component is estimated from the global hydrological model PCR-
GLOBWB.

DATA AND MODELS

 2.2 Vertical Land Motion, GIA, and Nodal Cycle
Tide gauge is used to measure relative to land, and therefore VLM will be affected. GIA and Present-
Day mass effects cause solid earth deformation to obtain VLM, then GPS observation for to understand
VLM non-solid earth deformation (unknown VLM) by the equation:

Where GPS processed obtained from Nevada Geodetic Laboratory (geodesy.unr.edu). The 18.6 year of
nodal cycle causes variability on the decadal scales by assuming the self-consistent equilibrium law of
amplitude (Woodworth, 2012).

2.3 Steric Height

To determine the relationship between open ocean steric signals and shelf sea level, this study remove
the sea level response to all large–scale mass contributors and the equilibrium nodal cycle from
observed RSL and compute the correlation between the resulting detrended and 25 month low-pass
filtered residual RSL and steric sea level over the North Atlantic.

The result of correlation pattern shows the open ocean steric height in
the Bay of Biscay and west of Portugal correlates strongly with sea level
variability in the North Sea, exhibits in figure beside.

*grey line depicts the 1.000 m of isobath

DATA AND MODELS

 2.3 Steric Height

Figure below shows the satellite altimetry observations whereas looks a very similar pattern to steric
height, and they also denote at the coherence between the North Sea and the Norwegian coast.
Thus, this study use the average steric signal over these area (North sea and Norway coast) as a proxy
for the impact of ocean dynamics on the shelf.
Since open ocean steric anomalies below the shelf bottom affects on-shelf bottom pressure, shelf-
attraction and loading effects will amplify the signal. This effect is very small effect, then not taken
into account in this research study.

DATA AND MODELS

2.4 Reconstructed RSL
Relative Sea Level as the sum of all contributing processes
constructed from:
(t) + (t) + (t) + (t) + (t)

where denotes as reconstructed RSL at time, states dynamic contribution, is local RSL response to
sum of mass effects, the RSL response to GIA. exhibits as the contribution of nodal cycle, and as
residual of vertical land motion.

The RSL response to the GIA and mass effects consist of geoid and * eustatic changes and solid earth
deformation.

*where eustatic level changes can be explained as

global sea level changes related to changes in the
volume of water on the ocean

Figure besides states as present-day vertical

crustal motion (left), and relative sea level (right)
due to GIA from Global Model (ICE-6G VM2a)

DATA AND MODELS

RESULTS

According to the figure besides, the dynamic

signal shows significant variability on
decadal scales, meanwhile large-scale mass
impacts are varying slower. The amplitude of
the equilibrium nodal cycle is in the order of
10mm.
Along the Norwegian coast, the same dynamic
signal is still clearly visible, although the
residual shows larger peaks in the North Sea.
After removing the linear trend and applying
a 25-month running mean, the fraction of
explained variance ( R 2 ) is 0.79 between the
detrended contributors and sea level, and the
corresponding correlation coefficient is 0.89
in the North Sea. While for Norway coast, the
measurement exhibits 0.63 and 0.79
respectively

8
RESULTS Comparation of reconstruction and
observation is applied in the relative sea
level, is shown by table besides.
Along the coast, significant uplift is taking
significant value for which a large part is
exposed by GIA and solid earth deformation
due to mass exchange. It must be noticed that
GIA models predict a rapid gradient in
vertical land motion and relative sea level
along the coastline.
However, the solid earth models response an
upward acceleration over the period of
interest which cause GPS observations to
overestimate the long-term linear trend in
vertical land motion.
Because of the contributions of GIA, VLM, &
the nodal cycle, the sum of all contributors to
the North Sea is close to the global mean
sum. Regarding the Norway, no significant
upward trend can be discovered: GIA &
residual VLM compensate for all mass and
*Note that the listed uncertainties are on the
steric effects.
1 level

9
 The ocean component has a horizontal resolution
1 o and the isopycnal-coordinate model is mass
conserving which makes the model suitable to
study sea level variability moved by changes in
steric height and ocean bottom pressure.
Where figure a) besides indicates the correlation
of steric sea height in the Bay of Biscay with
local dynamic sea level. Figure b) shows that the
open ocean steric signal correlates with the mass
signal in the North Sea and at the Norwegian
shelf, whereas along the Norwegian coast is
affected by local steric and explain the majority
of sea level variability (figure c)). Meantime,
figure d) presents the linear trend of dynamic sea
level.
Consequently, to maintain longshore coherence,
the steric component along the shelf should
imitate the steric effect in the Bay of Biscay.
*remember, CMIP5 Earth system model
(NorESM1-M) is applied to evaluate the
properties of the correlation pattern between open
steric and along-shelf sea level signal.
*NorESM1-M (1900-
DISCUSSION 2005) output 10
 Figure a) besides explains the comparison
between observed steric signal in the Bay of
Biscay and on the Norwegian shelf though on
sub-decadal scales. This confirmed the coherence
between open ocean (states as Bay of Biscay) and
on-shelf steric variability on the lowest
frequencies.
GRACE-derived on-shelf Ocean Bottom
Pressure/OBP (presented by Figure b) are
consistent with sea level on both shelves, which
indicates that the remote steric signal also
appears as an on-shelf mass signal.
Then, figure c) and d) account the sea level
response towards nodal tide, where some studies
suggest that the nodal cycle can explain a large
fraction of the observed decadal variability
*nodal cycle can be approached as Nodal
modulation which is a slow variation of the
amplitude of diurnal or semidiurnal ocean tides
associated with relative motions of the Earth,
Moon, and Sun over a period of 18.61 years )(2)

DISCUSSION 11
 AVAILABLE DATA STATEMENT

• Multiple linear regression wit time series by Twentieth Century Reanalysis (Compo et.al., 2011)
• Elastic Sea Level Equation (Clark & Lingle, 1977; Tamisiea et.al., 2010)
• Antarctica output model Grace Recovery and Climate Experiment (GARCE) (Watkins et.al., 2012)
• Surface Mass balance (SMB) is modeled by RACMO2.3 (Noel et.al., 2015; van Wessem et al., 2014)
• Greenland Ice Sheets (van den Broeke et.al., 2016)
• Mass balance Antarctic before 1992 (Menger et.al., 2016), polar wander observations (Mitrovica et.al., 2016)
• Linear trends of GPS along Norwegian coast (Kierulf et.al., 2014)
• GIA impact on VLM and sea level estimation from the global ICE6G-VM5a model (Peltier et.al., 2015)
• Equilibrium law to account the nodal cycle (Proudman, 1960; Woodworth, 2012)
• Steric changes from 3-D temperature and salinity grids from EN4 version 4.1.1 (Good et.al., 2013)

PRESENTATION TITLE 12
THANK YOU

PRESENTATION TITLE 13