Climate of the Past Discussions www.clim-past-discuss.net 1814-9340 1814-9359 5 2 2009 10.5194/cpd-5-1109-2009 http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/1109/2009/ http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/1109/2009/cpd-5-1109-2009.html http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/1109/2009/cpd-5-1109-2009.pdf 1109 1132 2009-03-20 2-D reconstruction of past sea level (1950–2003) using tide gauge records and spatial patterns from a general ocean circulation model W. Llovel william.llovel@legos.obs-mip.fr A. Cazenave P. Rogel A. Lombard M. Bergé-Nguyen LEGOS, OMP, 18 avenue Edouard Belin – 31401 Toulouse Cedex 09, France CERFACS/URA1875, 42, Avenue Gaspard Coriolis, 31057 Toulouse Cedex 01, France CNES, 18 avenue Edouard Belin – 31401 Toulouse Cedex 09, France A two-dimensional reconstruction of past sea level is proposed at yearly interval over the period 1950–2003 using tide gauge records at 99 selected sites and 44-year long (1960–2003) 2°×2° gridded dynamic heights from the OPA/NEMO global ocean circulation model with data assimilation. An Empirical Orthogonal Function decomposition of the reconstructed sea level over 1950–2003 displays leading modes that reflect two main components: a long-term (multi-decadal) but regionally variable signal and interannual fluctuations dominated by the signature of El Nino-Southern Oscillation. Tests show that spatial trend patterns of the 54-year long reconstructed sea level (1950–2003) significantly depend on the length of the gridded OPA/NEMO time series used to compute spatial covariance signal used for the reconstruction (i.e., the length of the gridded OPA/NEMO time series). On the other hand, the interannual variability is well reconstructed, even with ~10-year long of the OPA/NEMO model or satellite altimetry-based sea level grids. The robustness of the results is assessed, leaving out successively each of the 99 tide gauges when reconstructing the sea level signal and then comparing observed and reconstructed time series at the non contributing tide gauge site. The reconstruction performs well at most tide gauges, especially at interannual frequency. Alvera-Azcarate, A., Barth, A., Rixen, M., and Beckers, J. 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