Year by year closure adjustment of global mean sea level budget, inclusive of lumped snow, water vapor, and permafrost mass components

Abstract

Abstract Global mean sea level budget is rigorously adjusted during the period 2005–2015 with an emphasis on closing the budget on a year by year basis as opposed to using linear trends of global mean sea level components. The adjustment also accounts for the effect of snow, water vapor, and permafrost mass components as a lump sum. The approach provides better resolution for evaluating individual contribution of each budget component year by year in tandem with the other components. Year by year budget misclosures and the confidence intervals of the year by year adjusted budget components are suggestive of an increasing non-linearity in satellite altimetry derived global mean sea level measurements starting in 2012, which are not present in the other components. The solution also generates time series iteratively for the lumped snow, water vapor, and permafrost mass components as well as an estimate for its linear trend, 0.06±0.59 mm/yr. Nonetheless, its standard error is markedly large because of the un-modeled variability in satellite altimetry observed yearly averaged global mean sea level anomalies.