Little Picture - global mean sea level

a Little Picture reveals the global mean sea level trend

Sea level rise is one of the clearest indicators of climate change and puts millions living in coastal zone under threat of inundation. For this reason, the "classic curve" of the rise is presented in this Little Picture.

Global mean sea level has been increasing 3.2mm over the satellite altimetry record. The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission is extending sea-surface height measurements until at least 2030.

About

The Little Picture graphic uses data on global mean sea level from 1993 to 2015 to show an upward trend of 3.2mm per year.

Data

The CLIP uses the following datasets:

ESA Sea Level CCI: Oceanic Indicators of Mean Sea Level Changes (MSL), Version 2.0, Cate dataset identifier: esacci.SEALEVEL.mon.IND.MSL.multi-sensor.multi-platform.MERGED.2-0.r1.

Code

The code and documentation used to build this Little Picture can be found on the github repository – https://github.com/littlepictures/clip_global_sea_level_rise

Licence

This little picture is published under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

The big picture

The European Space Agency (ESA), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) work closely together to measure, process & make space-derived information about the climate available.

ESA

The mission of the Climate Change Initiative (CCI) is to realise the full potential of the long-term global Earth Observation archives that the European Space Agency (ESA), together with its Member states, has established over the past 40 years, as a significant and timely contribution to the climate databases required by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The ESA Climate Office provides a free & open CCI data facility bringing together ECV data from across its twenty-seven climate science projects, including a CCI Data Standards and a CCI Toolbox.

ECMWF

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) supports society by providing freely available authoritative information about the past, present and future climate in Europe and the rest of the World. C3S is one of the six thematic information services provided by the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme of the European Union, and has been entrusted by the European Commission to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). One of the core components of C3S includes the Climate Data Store (CDS). This is a one-stop shop for climate information. It provides free and easy access to a wide range of climate datasets via a searchable catalogue. A freely available online toolbox allows users to build workflows and applications suited to their needs.

EUMETSAT

EUMETSAT operates missions both to provide weather and climate data for its member states, and as an entrusted entity under the Copernicus programme. Several missions are operated collaboratively with ESA, providing complimentary expertise and data processing, to process and distribute land, marine, and atmosphere relevant products for users. Data from EUMETSAT operated missions is frequently available in near-real-time, facilitating rapid monitoring and forecasting. Via EUMETCast, the EUMETSAT Data Services, or WEkEO, users can access data in ways that suit their needs. The data is used by the EUMETSAT satellite applications facilities, as well as across the various Copernicus Services.

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