Steric Sea Level
D1. Physical and chemical oceanography and marine meteorologyDefinition
Change in sea level due to thermal expansion and salinity changes.
Steric sea-level change is the part of sea-level variation caused by changes in seawater density, split into thermosteric (thermal expansion as the ocean warms) and halosteric (salinity-driven) components. It adds to the mass (barystatic) contribution from melting land ice. Thermal expansion of the warming upper ocean accounts for a large share of twentieth-century global sea-level rise, which is why steric and ocean-heat-content estimates are linked.