Publication details.

Paper

Year:	2019
Author(s):	S. Dangendorf, C. Hay, F. Calafat, M. Marcos, C. Piecuch, K. Berk, J. Jensen
Title:	Persistent acceleration in global sea-level rise since the 1960s
Journal:	Nature Climate Change
ISSN:	1758-678X
JCR Impact Factor:	20.893
Volume:	9
Issue No.:	9
Pages:	705-710
D.O.I.:	10.1038/s41558-019-0531-8
Web:	https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0531-8
Abstract:	© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.Previous studies reconstructed twentieth-century global mean sea level (GMSL) from sparse tide-gauge records to understand whether the recent high rates obtained from satellite altimetry are part of a longer-term acceleration. However, these analyses used techniques that can only accurately capture either the trend or the variability in GMSL, but not both. Here we present an improved hybrid sea-level reconstruction during 1900–2015 that combines previous techniques at time scales where they perform best. We find a persistent acceleration in GMSL since the 1960s and demonstrate that this is largely (~76%) associated with sea-level changes in the Indo-Pacific and South Atlantic. We show that the initiation of the acceleration in the 1960s is tightly linked to an intensification and a basin-scale equatorward shift of Southern Hemispheric westerlies, leading to increased ocean heat uptake, and hence greater rates of GMSL rise, through changes in the circulation of the Southern Ocean.