Sea level changes over the global ocean in the 20. and 21. centuries

As a major effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gases induced global warming, sea level rise is a key climate issue of crucial interest in the frame of climate change investigation. The aim of this Ph.D. thesis is to study the relative importance of the different processes that contribute to sea level change during the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, by using an eddy-permitting Ocean General Circulation Model at a spatial resolution of 1/4°. We have further extended our analysis in the future, by providing projections of sea level change for the next 20 years at an unprecedented resolution of 0.25°, with particular focus on the Pacific Small Island region, which represents a highly vulnerable region to the impacts of sea level rise. The exchange of water between the ocean and Greenland and Antarctica ice-sheets is one of the major causes of sea level change. For this reason, the response of the ocean to a realistic ice-sheets runoff, reconstructed through a combination of gravimetric and atmospheric model data, has been investigated.