The Transient Sea Level response to external forcing in CMIP6 models

Aslak Grinsted; Jonathan Bamber; Rory Bingham; Sammie Buzzard; Isabel Nias; Kelvin Ng; Jennifer Weeks

doi:10.1029/2022EF002696

The Transient Sea Level response to external forcing in CMIP6 models

Aslak Grinsted, Jonathan Bamber, Rory Bingham, Sammie Buzzard, Isabel Nias, Kelvin Ng, Jennifer Weeks

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

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Abstract

Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty-first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling.

Original language	English
Article number	e2022EF002696
Journal	Earth's Future
Volume	10
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF002696
Publication status	Published - 8 Aug 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We thank the Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon for providing the opportunity and support to make this project possible. The 2021 Climate Data Challenge hackathon series, including the events hosted by Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities, was supported by the Met Office. Aslak Grinsted was supported by Villum experiment Old Noble Grant Nos. 28024 and Villum Investigator Project IceFlow Grant No. 16572. JLB was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 694188; GlobalMass) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) international future AI lab “AI4EO—Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation” (Grant number: 01DD20001). We thank Helene Seroussi for providing SMB data from the ISMIP6 Antarctic projections. This work used JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. We are grateful for the coordinated model intercomparison efforts of CMIP6, GlacierMIP, and ISMIP6. We thank the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) effort, which provided support for ISMIP6 through sponsoring of workshops, hosting the ISMIP6 website and wiki, and promoted ISMIP6. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the CMIP data and providing access, the University at Buffalo for ISMIP6 data distribution and upload, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5 and CMIP6 and ESGF. We thank the ISMIP6 steering committee, the ISMIP6 model selection group and ISMIP6 data set preparation group for their continuous engagement in defining ISMIP6.

Funding Information:
We thank the Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon for providing the opportunity and support to make this project possible. The 2021 Climate Data Challenge hackathon series, including the events hosted by Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities, was supported by the Met Office. Aslak Grinsted was supported by Villum experiment Old Noble Grant Nos. 28024 and Villum Investigator Project IceFlow Grant No. 16572. JLB was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 694188; GlobalMass) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) international future AI lab “AI4EO—Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation” (Grant number: 01DD20001). We thank Helene Seroussi for providing SMB data from the ISMIP6 Antarctic projections. This work used JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. We are grateful for the coordinated model intercomparison efforts of CMIP6, GlacierMIP, and ISMIP6. We thank the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) effort, which provided support for ISMIP6 through sponsoring of workshops, hosting the ISMIP6 website and wiki, and promoted ISMIP6. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the CMIP data and providing access, the University at Buffalo for ISMIP6 data distribution and upload, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5 and CMIP6 and ESGF. We thank the ISMIP6 steering committee, the ISMIP6 model selection group and ISMIP6 data set preparation group for their continuous engagement in defining ISMIP6.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors. Earth's Future published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union.

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GlobalMass

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GlobalMass: Global ice and ocean mass trends
Bates, P. D. (Co-Principal Investigator), Bingham, R. J. (Co-Principal Investigator), Chuter, S. J. (Researcher), Hofer, S. (Student), Llovell, W. (Researcher), Martin Espanol, A. (Researcher), Rougier, J. C. (Co-Principal Investigator), Schumacher, M. (Researcher), Sha, Z. (Researcher), Westaway, R. M. (Manager), Royston, S. J. (Researcher), Vishwakarma, B. D. (Researcher), Bamber, J. L. (Principal Investigator), Brady, A. (Researcher), Ziegler, Y. (Researcher), Abele, A. K. (Student) & Lehmann, F. (Student)
1/08/16 → 30/11/22
Project: Research

Cite this

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title = "The Transient Sea Level response to external forcing in CMIP6 models",

abstract = "Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty-first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling.",

author = "Aslak Grinsted and Jonathan Bamber and Rory Bingham and Sammie Buzzard and Isabel Nias and Kelvin Ng and Jennifer Weeks",

note = "Funding Information: We thank the Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon for providing the opportunity and support to make this project possible. The 2021 Climate Data Challenge hackathon series, including the events hosted by Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities, was supported by the Met Office. Aslak Grinsted was supported by Villum experiment Old Noble Grant Nos. 28024 and Villum Investigator Project IceFlow Grant No. 16572. JLB was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 694188; GlobalMass) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) international future AI lab “AI4EO—Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation” (Grant number: 01DD20001). We thank Helene Seroussi for providing SMB data from the ISMIP6 Antarctic projections. This work used JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. We are grateful for the coordinated model intercomparison efforts of CMIP6, GlacierMIP, and ISMIP6. We thank the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) effort, which provided support for ISMIP6 through sponsoring of workshops, hosting the ISMIP6 website and wiki, and promoted ISMIP6. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the CMIP data and providing access, the University at Buffalo for ISMIP6 data distribution and upload, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5 and CMIP6 and ESGF. We thank the ISMIP6 steering committee, the ISMIP6 model selection group and ISMIP6 data set preparation group for their continuous engagement in defining ISMIP6. Funding Information: We thank the Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon for providing the opportunity and support to make this project possible. The 2021 Climate Data Challenge hackathon series, including the events hosted by Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities, was supported by the Met Office. Aslak Grinsted was supported by Villum experiment Old Noble Grant Nos. 28024 and Villum Investigator Project IceFlow Grant No. 16572. JLB was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 694188; GlobalMass) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) international future AI lab “AI4EO—Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation” (Grant number: 01DD20001). We thank Helene Seroussi for providing SMB data from the ISMIP6 Antarctic projections. This work used JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. We are grateful for the coordinated model intercomparison efforts of CMIP6, GlacierMIP, and ISMIP6. We thank the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) effort, which provided support for ISMIP6 through sponsoring of workshops, hosting the ISMIP6 website and wiki, and promoted ISMIP6. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the CMIP data and providing access, the University at Buffalo for ISMIP6 data distribution and upload, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5 and CMIP6 and ESGF. We thank the ISMIP6 steering committee, the ISMIP6 model selection group and ISMIP6 data set preparation group for their continuous engagement in defining ISMIP6. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors. Earth's Future published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union.",

year = "2022",

month = aug,

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doi = "10.1029/2022EF002696",

language = "English",

volume = "10",

journal = "Earth's Future",

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publisher = "American Geophysical Union",

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T1 - The Transient Sea Level response to external forcing in CMIP6 models

AU - Grinsted, Aslak

AU - Bamber, Jonathan

AU - Bingham, Rory

AU - Buzzard, Sammie

AU - Nias, Isabel

AU - Ng, Kelvin

AU - Weeks, Jennifer

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon for providing the opportunity and support to make this project possible. The 2021 Climate Data Challenge hackathon series, including the events hosted by Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities, was supported by the Met Office. Aslak Grinsted was supported by Villum experiment Old Noble Grant Nos. 28024 and Villum Investigator Project IceFlow Grant No. 16572. JLB was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 694188; GlobalMass) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) international future AI lab “AI4EO—Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation” (Grant number: 01DD20001). We thank Helene Seroussi for providing SMB data from the ISMIP6 Antarctic projections. This work used JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. We are grateful for the coordinated model intercomparison efforts of CMIP6, GlacierMIP, and ISMIP6. We thank the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) effort, which provided support for ISMIP6 through sponsoring of workshops, hosting the ISMIP6 website and wiki, and promoted ISMIP6. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the CMIP data and providing access, the University at Buffalo for ISMIP6 data distribution and upload, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5 and CMIP6 and ESGF. We thank the ISMIP6 steering committee, the ISMIP6 model selection group and ISMIP6 data set preparation group for their continuous engagement in defining ISMIP6. Funding Information: We thank the Bristol CMIP6 Data Hackathon for providing the opportunity and support to make this project possible. The 2021 Climate Data Challenge hackathon series, including the events hosted by Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities, was supported by the Met Office. Aslak Grinsted was supported by Villum experiment Old Noble Grant Nos. 28024 and Villum Investigator Project IceFlow Grant No. 16572. JLB was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement no. 694188; GlobalMass) and German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) international future AI lab “AI4EO—Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation” (Grant number: 01DD20001). We thank Helene Seroussi for providing SMB data from the ISMIP6 Antarctic projections. This work used JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. We are grateful for the coordinated model intercomparison efforts of CMIP6, GlacierMIP, and ISMIP6. We thank the Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) effort, which provided support for ISMIP6 through sponsoring of workshops, hosting the ISMIP6 website and wiki, and promoted ISMIP6. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme, which, through its Working Group on Coupled Modelling, coordinated and promoted CMIP5 and CMIP6. We thank the climate modeling groups for producing and making available their model output, the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) for archiving the CMIP data and providing access, the University at Buffalo for ISMIP6 data distribution and upload, and the multiple funding agencies who support CMIP5 and CMIP6 and ESGF. We thank the ISMIP6 steering committee, the ISMIP6 model selection group and ISMIP6 data set preparation group for their continuous engagement in defining ISMIP6. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Earth's Future published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Geophysical Union.

PY - 2022/8/8

Y1 - 2022/8/8

N2 - Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty-first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling.

AB - Earth is warming and sea levels are rising as land-based ice is lost to melt, and oceans expand due to accumulation of heat. The pace of ice loss and steric expansion is linked to the intensity of warming. How much faster sea level will rise as climate warms is, however, highly uncertain and difficult to model. Here, we quantify the transient sea level sensitivity of the sea level budget in both models and observations. Models show little change in sensitivity to warming between the first and second half of the twenty-first century for most contributors. The exception is glaciers and ice caps (GIC) that have a greater sensitivity pre-2050 (2.8 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K) compared to later (0.7 ± 0.1 mm/yr/K). We attribute this change to the short response time of glaciers and their changing area over time. Model sensitivities of steric expansion (1.5 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K), and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (0.8 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K) are greater than, but still compatible with, corresponding estimates from historical data (1.4 ± 0.5 and 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) models tends to show lower rates of sea level rise (SLR) with warming (−0.0 ± 0.3 mm/yr/K) in contrast to historical estimates (0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr/K). This apparent low bias in AIS sensitivity is only partly able to account for a similar low bias identified in the sensitivity of global mean sea level excluding GIC (3.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.3 ± 0.4 mm/yr/K). The balance temperature, where SLR is zero, lies close to the pre-industrial value, implying that SLR can only be mitigated by substantial global cooling.

U2 - 10.1029/2022EF002696

DO - 10.1029/2022EF002696

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

C2 - 36582516

SN - 2328-4277

VL - 10

JO - Earth's Future

JF - Earth's Future

IS - 10

M1 - e2022EF002696

ER -

The Transient Sea Level response to external forcing in CMIP6 models

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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GlobalMass: Global ice and ocean mass trends

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