In recent sea level studies, discrepancies have arisen in ocean mass observations obtained from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and its successor, GRACE Follow-On, with GRACE estimates consistently appearing lower than density-corrected ocean volume observations since 2015. These disparities have raised concerns about potential systematic biases in sea-level observations, with significant implications for our understanding of this essential climate variable. Here, we reconstruct the global and regional ocean mass change through models of ice and water mass changes on land and find that it closely aligns with both GRACE and density-corrected ocean volume observations after implementing recent adjustments to the wet troposphere correction and halosteric sea level. While natural variability in terrestrial water storage is important on interannual timescales, we find that the net increase in ocean mass over 20 years can be almost entirely attributed to ice wastage and human management of water resources.
History
Sub-type
Article
Publication title
Nature Communications
Volume
15
Issue
1
Article number
1416
Pagination
10
eISSN
2041-1723
ISSN
2041-1723
Department/School
Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences
Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
Publication status
Published
Place of publication
England
Rights statement
Copyright 2024 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License.