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As one of the most remote and inaccessible regions in the world, the sea level in the Arctic is still today in large parts uncertain. Sea level estimates from GRACE and satellite altimetry show disagreements in areas of the Arctic while only few in-situ measurements are present to validate satellite products. By using an independent in-situ based dataset of hydrographic data (DTUSteric), this study compares different available datasets from GRACE and altimetry. The best agreement (R = 0.76) is reached between the combination of DTUSteric and the JPL Mascon solution and the altimetry product from Centre of Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM). A large residual signal is found in the East Siberian Sea, an area with no in-situ observations and in general uncertain satellite observations. The spatial correlation coefficients ranging from 0.32 to 0.76 reflects a large number of unknowns and uncertainties, with coarse GRACE resolution, extensive interpolation and lack of in-situ data in parts of the Arctic Ocean and uncertainty of the altimetric products being the largest sources of error. In general, we recommended that satellite observations are used carefully in the Arctic. Even this study shows that steric estimates from in-situ observations to some extent can explain the gap between GRACE and altimetry, the observed sea level trend in significant regions of the Arctic cannot be validated with in-situ hydrographic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tibetan lakes are an effective indicator of climate change as they are highly sensitive to and directly affected by climate change. The past decade has seen the seven warmest years on record globally. Such observations have prompted questions about lake changes over the Tibetan Plateau. The dense coverage of the CryoSat‐2 altimeter reveals large‐scale patterns in this climate change signal. We investigate lake level variations of more than 200 lakes using altimetry observations from CryoSat‐2 during the period 2010 to 2019. Combined with GRACE/GRACE‐FO, we evaluate the water storage change of lakes and terrestrial water storage (TWS). We find that most studied lakes generally went through three phases of change, that is, rising‐hiatus/decline‐rising, albeit lakes in the north Tibetan Plateau, show higher rising rates. Results also show that lake levels are widely affected by the 2015/16 El Niño event across the entire Inner Plateau via reduced precipitation. Above normal precipitation during 2016–2018, resulted in a sharp rise of ~1.22 m on average, accounting for 56% of the decadal lake level rise (mean/median: 2.19/1.85 m). TWS in the Inner Tibetan Plateau accumulated a net gain of 70.5 km3, which is dominated by the net gain of lake water storage (ca. 63.3 km3). The interannual TWS variation is found to be associated mainly with precipitation. In particular, extreme conditions such as the 2015/16 El Niño, had a profound negative impact on the TWS. The findings in this study shed new light on the response of Tibetan lakes to recent decadal environmental changes. Key Points: More than 200 lakes have been monitored by CryoSat‐2 over the last decade (2010–2019)CryoSat‐2 reveals three phases (rising‐hiatus/decline‐rising) of lake level change; hiatus/decline is widely observed during 2015/16 El NiñoMean change of lake level over the last decade is 2.19 m, of which 56% occurs in the three most recent years [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract. Sea level is an essential climate variable (ECV) that has a direct effect on many people through inundations of coastal areas, and it is also a clear indicator of climate changes due to external forcing factors and internal climate variability. Regional patterns of sea level change inform us on ocean circulation variations in response to natural climate modes such as El Niño and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and anthropogenic forcing. Comparing numerical climate models to a consistent set of observations enables us to assess the performance of these models and help us to understand and predict these phenomena, and thereby alleviate some of the environmental conditions associated with them. All such studies rely on the existence of long-term consistent high-accuracy datasets of sea level. The Climate Change Initiative (CCI) of the European Space Agency was established in 2010 to provide improved time series of some ECVs, including sea level, with the purpose of providing such data openly to all to enable the widest possible utilisation of such data. Now in its second phase, the Sea Level CCI project (SL_cci) merges data from nine different altimeter missions in a clear, consistent and well-documented manner, selecting the most appropriate satellite orbits and geophysical corrections in order to further reduce the error budget. This paper summarises the corrections required, the provenance of corrections and the evaluation of options that have been adopted for the recently released v2.0 dataset (https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-sea_level_cci-1993_2015-v_2.0-201612). This information enables scientists and other users to clearly understand which corrections have been applied and their effects on the sea level dataset. The overall result of these changes is that the rate of rise of global mean sea level (GMSL) still equates to ∼ 3.2 mm yr−1 during 1992–2015, but there is now greater confidence in this result as the errors associated with several of the corrections have been reduced. Compared with v1.1 of the SL_cci dataset, the new rate of change is 0.2 mm yr−1 less during 1993 to 2001 and 0.2 mm yr−1 higher during 2002 to 2014. Application of new correction models brought a reduction of altimeter crossover variances for most corrections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea level change is an important indicator of climate change. Our study focuses on the sea level budget assessment of the Arctic Ocean using: (1) the newly reprocessed satellite altimeter data with major changes in the processing techniques; (2) ocean mass change data derived from GRACE satellite gravimetry; (3) and steric height estimated from gridded hydrographic data for the GRACE/Argo time period (2003–2016). The Beaufort Gyre (BG) and the Nordic Seas (NS) regions exhibit the largest positive trend in sea level during the study period. Halosteric sea level change is found to dominate the area averaged sea level trend of BG, while the trend in NS is found to be influenced by halosteric and ocean mass change effects. Temporal variability of sea level in these two regions reveals a significant shift in the trend pattern centered around 2009–2011. Analysis suggests that this shift can be explained by a change in large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns over the Arctic. The sea level budget assessment of the Arctic found a residual trend of more than 1.0 mm/yr. This nonclosure of the sea level budget is further attributed to the limitations of the three above mentioned datasets in the Arctic region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are of great interest due to their value as water resources but also as an important indicator of climate change. However, in situ data in this region are extremely scarce and only a few lakes have gauge measurements. Satellite altimetry has been used successfully to monitor lake levels. In this study, Cryosat-2 SARIn mode data over the period 2010–2015 are used to investigate recent lake level variations. The estimated water levels of the 70 largest lakes (> 100 km 2 ) on the TP show that 48 lakes reveal a rising trend (avg. 0.28 ± 0.06 m/yr) while the other 22 show a slightly decreasing trend (avg. −0.10 ± 0.04 m/yr). To compare with the change rates during 2003–2009, ICESat data which cover 42 of the 70 lakes are also used. When combining the data, the results show that during the period of 2003–2015, 28 lakes maintained a rising trend and the change rates are comparable. Lakes in the northern part of the TP experienced pronounced rising (avg. 0.37 ± 0.10 m/yr), while lakes in southern part were steady or decreasing even in glaciated basins with high precipitation. Factor analysis indicates that driving factors for lake change are variable due to high spatial heterogeneity. However, autumn/winter temperature plays an important role in lake level change. These results demonstrate that lakes on the TP are still rapidly changing under climate change, especially in northern part of the TP, but the driving factors are variable and more research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind observed changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]