| Summary: | Thermosteric contribution of warming oceans
to the global sea level variations during the last century
was evaluated at globally distributed 27 tide gauge stations
with records over 80 years. The assessment was made using
a recently proposed lagged model inclusive of a sea
level trend, long and decadal periodicities, and lagged sea
surface temperature measurements. The new model solutions
revealed that almost all the long period periodic
sea level changes experienced at these stations can be attributed
to the lagged thermosteric effects of the warming
oceans during the 20th century. Meanwhile, statistically
significant (p<0.05) anomalous thermosteric contributions
to the secular trends, some of them as large as
1.0±0.2 mm/yr, were detected at six tide gauge stations
close to the equator and open seas. The findings of this
study revealed a more complex impact of the warming
oceans at the globally distributed tide gauge stations other
than a secular contribution to the sea level trends of the
previous studies.
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