Regional sea level changes in the marginal seas of southeast Asia: Mechanisms and projections of possible 21st-century trends

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The western tropical Pacific represents an area with strong interannual and decadal sea level variations. While the changes in the open ocean are basically understood in terms of wind-driven redistributions of upper-ocean waters associated with major climate modes (ENSO, PDO), much less is known about the modification of these signals in the Indonesian Archipelago and the marginal seas and shelf areas of southeast Asia, i.e., about the relative role of remote and local forcing mechanisms. Projections of future trends in these areas are hampered since present climate models do not resolve the complex flow structures of the boundary currents and flows through the narrow passages, and are thus lacking potentially important processes, e.g., for connecting the changes in the western Pacific with the Indian Ocean, and for a realistic propagation of deep ocean changes onto the shelf areas and coastal waters.The goal of this project are to provide a regionally refined characterization and mechanistic interpretation of the sea level variability along the continental shelf and marginal seas of southern and southeastern Asia, and to provide regionally refined projections of the range of future sea level changes to be expected from the possible trends in the atmospheric conditions as simulated in 21st-century climate scenarios. The project uses a series of ocean model experiments that build on a global ocean-sea ice model with a resolution of 1/4° which is regionally refined to 1/20°.