Modeling Sea Level Rise Over 1993–2022: Implications for Understanding Coastal Observations

Abstract

Revealing the causes for modern coastal sea level rise advances actions for climate change. We model sea level rise with contributing sources, including land ice melting and sterodynamic sea level (SDSL) rise, then explore its implications for explaining measurements from tide gauges (TGs) and satellite altimetry over 1993–2022. The modeled sea levels better explain TGs if the sterodynamic sea levels are constrained with satellite altimetry. The latitudinal average suggests that contribution from land ice melting and water storage variations dominates the coastal sea level rise at global scale, while the SDSL rise modulates sea level rise across various spatial scales. Our analysis highlights the important role of vertical land motion in reconciling the sea level observations and modeled sea level rise.