Our understanding of long term sea level rise has changed considerably over the past decades. However, there are still many questions to answer. Various questions will be discussed in this session. For example, do we fully understand the reasons for the global and regional sea level rise in the past, present and future? What is the role of ocean dynamics and fresh water flux from melting glaciers and ice sheets in determining patterns of sea level change? Are we able to distinguish the natural variability from the anthropogenic signature in spatial trend patterns? How unusual is the rate of present day sea level rise compared to the last centuries?
How well do AOGCMs simulate 20th century changes and patterns? How well sea level simulations with AOGCMs agree with observational estimates, regarding both the trend and the regional variability?
We invite contributions from studies using historical and recent measurements of sea level from tide gauges, satellites, ocean reanalyses and climate models to improve our understanding of the past and present changes in sea level, and to produce better predictions of future change

Invited speakers:
Chris Hughes (National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool, UK)
Bo Christiansen (Danish Climate Centre, Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark)
Stefan Rahmstorf (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany)