Projection of future sea level rise in the East Asian Seas based on Global Ocean-Sea Ice Coupled Model with SRES A1B Scenario

Abstract

To project the future sea level rise in the East Asian Seas due to global warming, regional sea level variations are downscaled from three climate system models (GFDL-CM2.1, ECHAM5/MPI-OM, MIROC3.2(hires)) using a global ocean-sea ice coupled model with non-Boussinesq approximation. Based on the SRES A1B Scenario, the projected ensemble mean sea level rise (rate of rise) for the East Sea, Yellow Sea and East China Sea from 1995 to 2050 is 15.60cm (2.84mm/year), 16.49cm (3.0mm/year) and 16.43cm (2.99mm/year), respectively. With the inclusion of the future change of land ice melting and land water storage, the mean sea level rise (rate of rise) increases to 33.55cm (6.10mm/year) for the East Sea, and 34.38~34.44cm (6.25~6.26mm/year) for the Yellow and East China Seas. The present non-Boussinesq ocean model experiment shows that the future sea level rise in the East Sea is mainly due to the steric component changes by heat content increase. On the other hand, the future sea level rise in the Yellow and East China Seas appears to be mainly associated with the non-steric component change by water mass convergence.