engleski

Some pitfalls of the semi-empirical method of projecting sea level

We have recently developed a variant of the semi-empirical method, which allows for both equilibrium and inertial response of sea level to temperature forcing. It is here compared with two simpler variants of the method, which take into consideration the response that is either purely equilibrium or purely inertial. The coefficients implied by the two variants may be obtained from the available temperature and sea-level data, because the time series are dominated by the same exponential rise and the derivative of an exponential function equals the exponential function. The resulting coefficients, however, are much larger than their true values. When the present equilibrium coefficients are used to project sea level, the values obtained are increasingly smaller than the realistic projections over the next three centuries. When sea-level projections are prepared on the basis of the present inertial coefficients, the resulting values are smaller than the realistic projections at the end of the twenty-first century and considerably surpass the realistic values by the end of the twenty-third century. The finding is interpreted in terms of transfer functions underlying the two procedures.

Sea level projections, semi-empirical method

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