Collaborative Research: The Physics and Statistics of Global Sea Level Change

海平面上升（在某些地方，海平面下降）是目前最棘手的环境变化之一，其潜在和可能的影响为不可避免的适应带来巨大成本。尽管越来越多的文献讨论过去，现在和未来的海平面变化，定量的了解区域和全球平均海平面变化的原因仍然相当差？因为这些变化反映了物理海洋学、大地测量学、冰川学和气象学的一些最基本要素，包括观测系统不充分和不断变化所产生的偏差，以及海洋模型中微小但不断积累的误差。几乎所有由此产生的问题都在大量和不断增长的文献中讨论过，但主要是孤立的。该项目的目的是将联合收割机、经特别调整的海洋环流模式和所有现有数据合并为一个框架，以量化区域和全球海平面变化的原因。将针对1992年以来的各个时期以及在此之前数据稀少得多的时期开展单独但重叠的工作。智力优势：了解海平面上升的组成部分、空间分布和速度具有巨大的社会影响。海平面每年上升1毫米与持续25年的每年上升4毫米意味着适应成本的数量级不同。观察到的区域变化率是具有社会重要性的变化率，其变化率比上述两种变化率大一个数量级以上。更广泛的影响：目前还不能作出可信的预测，这项工作应朝着这一目标迈出重要一步。影响和适应战略不是本提案的一部分，但任何关心这些问题的人都应该对此感兴趣。

Sea level rise (and in some places, sea level fall) is one of the most troublesome of ongoing environmental changes, with potential and likely impacts generating huge costs for inevitable adaptation. Despite a growing literature discussing past, present and future sea level shifts, quantitative understanding of the causes of both regional and global mean sea level change remains quite poor?because the shifts reflect some of the most basic elements of physical oceanography, geodesy, glaciology, and meteorology, including biases from inadequate and shifting observation systems and small but accumulating errors in ocean models. Almost all of the resulting issues are discussed somewhere in the voluminous and growing literature, but primarily in isolation. The intent of this project is to combine into one framework, that of a specially adapted ocean general circulation model and all of the available data, to quantify the causes of regional and global sea levelchange. Separate, but overlapping efforts would be directed to the period(s) since 1992, and the much more data sparse periods prior to that time.Intellectual Merit: Understanding of the components, spatial distribution and rates of sea level rise has enormous social consequences. A sea level rise of 1 mm per year versus one of 4 mm per year sustained for 25 years implies adaptation costs that differ by orders of magnitude. Observed regional rates of change, which are the ones of societal importance, are more than an order of magnitude greater and of both signs.Broader Impacts: At the present time one cannot make credible predictions, and this work should take a major step toward that goal. Impacts and adaptation strategies are not part of this proposal, but it should be of interest to anyone concerned about those problems.