Shifts in multi-decadal sea level trends in the East/Japan Sea over the past 60 years

Abstract

Data derived from altimetry shows that since 1993 the mean sea level over the East /Japan (EJS) Sea is increasing at a rate of ~3 mm/year, but tide gauge records indicate that a multidecadal reversal trend occurred prior to the early 1980s. We here characterize and quantify the multi-decadal trend of mean sea level in the EJS from the reconstructed sea levels and the in-situ ocean profiles over the past 60 years. Our analysis shows that sea level trends have undergone a shift, revealing a declining trend before the early 1980s, followed by a rising trend from the early 1980s onward with a near basin-wide sea level fluctuation. The trend reversal strongly corresponds to changes in the upper-ocean heat content over the EJS, revealing a negative correlation with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index that correlates negatively with wind stress curl (WSC) in the subtropical North Pacific. The PDO-related WSC, which changes the transport of the western boundary current in the subtropical gyre, may account for the observed trend reversal in the EJS sea level on a multi-decadal time scale.