Abstracts
SEARCH Open Science Meeting
October 27, 2003
Seattle, Washington, USA
Sea Level Change in the Russian Sector of the Arctic Ocean
Andrey Proshutinsky1
1Physical Ocenography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MS 29, 360 Woods Hole Road, Woods Hole, MA, 02543, USA, Phone 508-289-2796, Fax 508-457-2181, aproshutinsky@whoi.edu
Sea level is a natural integral indicator of climate variability. It reflects changes in practically all dynamic and thermodynamic processes of terrestrial, oceanic, atmospheric, and cryospheric origin. The use of estimates of eustatic sea level rise as an indicator of climate change therefore incurs the difficulty that the inferred sea level change is the net result of many individual effects of environmental forcing. Since some of these effects may offset others, the cause of the sea level response to climate change remains somewhat uncertain. This paper is focussed on an attempt to provide first order answers to two questions, namely: What is the rate of sea level change in the Arctic Ocean? and furthermore, What is the role of each of the individual contributing factors to observed Arctic Ocean sea level change? In seeking answers to these questions we have discovered that the observed sea level is rising over the Arctic Ocean at a rate of approximately 0.123 cm/year and that after correction for the processes of the glacial isostatic adjustment this rate is approximately 0.185 cm/year. There are two major causes of this rise. The first is associated with the steric effect of ocean expansion. This effect is responsible for a contribution of approximately 0.064 cm/year to the total rate of rise (35%). The second most important factor is related to the ongoing decrease of sea level atmospheric pressure over the Arctic Ocean which contributes 0.056 cm/year, or approximately 30% of the net positive sea level trend. A third contribution to the sea level increase involves wind action and the increase of cyclonic winds over the Arctic Ocean which leads to sea level rise at a rate of 0.018 cm/year or approximately 10% of the total. The cumulative effect of sea level rise due to increase of river runoff and a negative trend in precipitation minus evaporation over the ocean is close to 0. In this region it therefore appears that approximately 25% of the trend or 0.045 cm/year may be due to eustatic effect of increasing Arctic Ocean mass.
Abstract Categories: Changes in the Sea
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