We also find that H is predicted with significantly more skill by DePreSys than by NoAssim (Fig. 1B), and we conclude that the improvement of DePreSys over NoAssim in predicting Ts on interannual - to -
decadal time scales results mainly from initializing upper ocean heat content.
At longer (
decadal)
time scales, the models still show very similar
results (which makes sense since we anticipate that the tropical atmospheric physics involved in the trend should be similar to the physics involved at the monthly and interannual timescales).
On
decadal and longer
time scales, global mean sea level change
results from two major processes, mostly related to recent climate change, that alter the volume of water in the global ocean: i) thermal expansion (Section 5.5.3), and ii) the exchange of water between oceans and other reservoirs (glaciers and ice caps, ice sheets, other land water reservoirs - including through anthropogenic change in land hydrology, and the atmosphere; Section 5.5.5).