Earliest local emergence of forced dynamic and steric sea-level trends in climate models

Abstract

We investigate the impact of internal variability on the emergence of a forced local trend in steric and dynamic sea surface height in historical and future climate simulations. By analyzing the unforced control simulations, the magnitude of internally generated, local trends in sea surface height is quantified and compared to trends found in historical simulations and projections. We find that the timing of the emergence of a forced local signal depends strongly on the location and the year in which the trend computations are started. Starting in 1950, it takes at least 60 yr to detect a forced trend in regions of weak internal variability such as the tropical Atlantic Ocean while this period is reduced to 30 yr when starting in 1990. The detection of a forced trend is further delayed by several decades in regions of elevated internal variability.