Sea level rise is both a powerful impact of and indicator for global warming and climate change. Observing sea level change, as well as its causes, is therefore a top priority for scientists and society at large. By measuring the ocean’s temperature, salinity, mass, and surface height, the relative sources of recent sea level rise can be discerned. With these observations, sea level change is determined in terms of total sea level and its two major components, ocean mass and steric (density-related) sea level. The sea level budget is closed when the sum of the independent components agrees with measurements of total sea level, indicating that the observations can be used to interpret the causes of sea level change. While nearly global monitoring of sea level from space-based radar altimeters has been available since the early 1990s, satellite gravity missions capable of weighing changes in ocean mass have been available for less than 10 years. Even more recently, the Argo array of profiling floats achieved a level of coverage that now allows assessment of global sea level change due to temperature and salinity in the upper 2,000 m of the ocean. Only during the overlapping period of all three observing systems can the sea level budget be directly addressed by observations.

Leuliette, E.W., and J.K. Willis. 2011. Balancing the sea level budget. Oceanography 24(2):122–129, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.32.

Beckley, B., N. Zelensky, S. Holmes, F. Lemoine, R. Ray, G. Mitchum, S. Desai, and S. Brown. 2010. Assessment of the Jason-2 extension to the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 sea-surface height time series for global mean sea level monitoring. Marine Geodesy 33(1):447–471. [CrossRef]

Bindoff, N., J. Willebrand, V. Artale, A. Cazenave, J. Gregory, S. Gulev, K. Hanawa, C. Le Quéré, S. Levitus, Y. Nojiri, and others. 2007. Observations: Oceanic climate change and sea level. Pp 385–432 in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor, and H.L. Miller, eds, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

Cazenave, A., and W. Llovel. 2010. Contemporary sea level rise. Annual Review of Marine Science 2(1):145–173. [CrossRef]

Cazenave, A., K. Dominh, S. Guinehut, E. Berthier, W. Llovel, G. Ramillien, M. Ablain, and G. Larnicol. 2009. Sea level budget over 2003–2008: A reevaluation from GRACE space gravimetry, satellite altimetry and Argo. Global and Planetary Change 65(1–2):83–88. [CrossRef]

Chambers, D. 2006. Observing seasonal steric sea level variations with GRACE and satellite altimetry. Journal of Geophysical Research 111(3):C03010, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JC002914. [CrossRef]

Chambers, D.P., and J.K. Willis. 2009. Low-frequency exchange of mass between ocean basins. Journal of Geophysical Research 114(C11), C11008. [CrossRef]

Chambers, D.P., and J.K. Willis. 2010. A global evaluation of ocean bottom pressure from GRACE, OMCT, and steric-corrected altimetry. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 27(8):1,395–1,402. [CrossRef]

Chambers, D.P., J. Wahr, and R.S. Nerem. 2004. Preliminary observations of global ocean mass variations with GRACE. Geophysical Research Letters 31, L13310. [CrossRef]

Chambers, D.P., J. Wahr, M.E. Tamisiea, and R.S. Nerem. 2010. Ocean mass from GRACE and glacial isostatic adjustment. Journal of Geophysical Research 115(B11), B11415. [CrossRef]

Chang, Y.-S., A.J. Rosati, and G.A. Vecchi. 2010. Basin patterns of global sea level changes for 2004–2007. Journal of Marine Systems 80(1–2):115–124. [CrossRef]

Church, J.A., J.M. Gregory, N.J. White, S.M. Platten, and J.X. Mitrovica. 2011. Understanding and projecting sea level change. Oceanography 24(2):130–143. [CrossRef]

Church, J.A., and N.J. White. 2006. A 20th century acceleration in global sea-level rise. Geophysical Research Letters 33, L01602. [CrossRef]

Collilieux, X., and G. Wöppelmann. 2011. Global sea-level rise and its relation to the terrestrial reference frame. Journal of Geodesy 85(1):9–22. [CrossRef]

Domingues, C.M., J. Church, N. White, P. Gleckler, S. Wijffels, P. Barker, and J. Dunn. 2008. Improved estimates of upper-ocean warming and multi-decadal sea-level rise. Nature 453(7198):1,090–1,093. [CrossRef]

Douglas, B., and W. Peltier. 2002. The puzzle of global sea-level rise. Physics Today 55(3):35–40. [CrossRef]

Gouretski, V., and F. Reseghetti. 2010. On depth and temperature biases in bathythermograph data: Development of a new correction scheme based on analysis of a global ocean database. Deep-Sea Research Part I 57(6):812–833. [CrossRef]

Han, W., G.A. Meehl, B. Rajagopalan, J.T. Fasullo, A. Hu, J. Lin, W.G. Large, J. Wang, X.-W. Quan, L.L. Trenary, and others. 2010. Patterns of Indian Ocean sea-level change in a warming climate. Nature Geoscience 3:546–550. [CrossRef]

Hu, A., G.A. Meehl, W. Han, and J. Yin. 2009. Transient response of the MOC and climate to potential melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet in the 21st century. Geophysical Research Letters 36, L10707. [CrossRef]

Ishii, M., and M. Kimoto. 2009. Reevaluation of historical ocean heat content variations with time-varying XBT and MBT depth bias corrections. Journal of Oceanography 65(3):287–299. [CrossRef]

Leuliette, E.W., and L. Miller. 2009. Closing the sea level rise budget with altimetry, Argo, and GRACE. Geophysical Research Letters 36, L04608. [CrossRef]

Leuliette, E.W., and L. Miller. 2010. The budget of recent global sea level rise, January 2004–March 2010. http://ibis.grdl.noaa.gov/SAT/SeaLevelRise/documents/NOAA_NESDIS_Sea_Level_Rise_Budget_Report_2010.pdf (accessed April 29, 2010).

Leuliette, E.W., and R. Scharroo. 2010. Integrating Jason-2 into a Multiple-Altimeter Climate Data Record. Marine Geodesy 33(1):504–517. [CrossRef]

Levitus, S., J.I. Antonov, T.P Boyer, R.A. Locarnini, H.E. Garcia, and A.V. Mishonov. 2009. Global ocean heat content 1955–2008 in light of recently revealed instrumentation problems. Geophysical Research Letters 36(7):L07608. [CrossRef]

Llovel, W., S. Guinehut, and A. Cazenave. 2010. Regional and interannual variability in sea level over 2002–2009 based on satellite altimetry, Argo float data and GRACE ocean mass. Ocean Dynamics 60(5):1,193–1,204. [CrossRef]

Lyman, J.M., and G. Johnson. 2008. Estimating annual global upper ocean heat content anomalies despite irregular in situ ocean sampling. Journal of Climate 21(21):5,629–5,641. [CrossRef]

Milne, G.A., W.R. Gehrels, C.W. Hughes, and M.E. Tamisiea. 2009. Identifying the causes of sea-level change. Nature Geosciences 2(7):471–478. [CrossRef]

Mitchum, G. 2000. An improved calibration of satellite altimetric heights using tide gauge sea levels with adjustment for land motion. Marine Geodesy 23(3):145–166. [CrossRef]

Nicholls, R.J. 2011. Planning for the impacts of sea level rise. Oceanography 24(2):144–157. [CrossRef]

Nerem, R., D. Chambers, E. Leuliette, G. Mitchum, and B. Giese. 1999. Variations in global mean sea level associated with the 1997–1998 ENSO event: Implications for measuring long-term sea level change. Geophysical Research Letters 26(19):3,005–3,008. [CrossRef]

Nerem, R., D. Chambers, C. Choe, and G. Mitchum. 2010. Estimating mean sea level change from the TOPEX and Jason altimeter missions. Marine Geodesy 33(1):435–446. [CrossRef]

Paulson, A., S. Zhong, and J. Wahr. 2007. Inference of mantle viscosity from GRACE and relative sea level data. Geophysical Journal International 171 (2):497-508. [CrossRef]

Peltier, W.R. 2009. Closure of the budget of global sea level rise over the GRACE era: The importance and magnitudes of the required corrections for global glacial isostatic adjustment. Quaternary Science Reviews 28(17–18):1,658–1,674. [CrossRef]

Pfeffer, W.T. 2011. Land ice and sea level rise: A thirty-year perspective. Oceanography 24(2):94–111. [CrossRef]

Prandi, P., A. Cazenave, and M. Becker. 2009. Is coastal mean sea level rising faster than the global mean? A comparison between tide gauges and satellite altimetry over 1993–2007. Geophysical Research Letters 36, L05602. [CrossRef]

Purkey, S.G., and G.C. Johnson. 2010. Warming of global abyssal and deep Southern Ocean waters between the 1990s and 2000s: Contributions to global heat and sea level rise budgets. Journal of Climate 23(23):6,336–6,351. [CrossRef]

Tamisiea, M.E., and J.X. Mitrovica. 2011. The moving boundaries of sea level change: Understanding the origins of geographic variability. Oceanography 24(2):24–39. [CrossRef]

Trenberth, K.E., and J.T. Fasullo. 2010. Tracking Earth’s energy. Science 328:316–317. [CrossRef]

Willis, J.K., D.P. Chambers, and R.S. Nerem. 2008. Assessing the globally averaged sea level budget on seasonal to interannual timescales. Journal of Geophysical Research 113(C6), C06015. [CrossRef]

Woodworth, P.L., W.R. Gehrels, and R.S. Nerem. 2011. Nineteenth and twentieth century changes in sea level. Oceanography 24(2):80–93, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2011.29. [CrossRef]

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.