ESA Open Invitation to Tender: 1-11340
Open Date: 20/06/2022 16:39 CEST
Closing Date: 15/09/2022 13:00 CEST

This activity, entitled „CCI Sea Level Budget Closure Follow-on”, short-named „SLBC_cci+”, represents the continuation and extension, under the Climate Change Initiative Programme Extension (CCI+), of the Sea Level Budget Closure Project (SLBC_cci). The SLBC_cci+activity is part of Theme 3 of CCI+, i.e., one of the cross-ECV’ activities. This activity is a contribution to the WCRP Grand Challenge of Regional Sea Level Changes and its Impacts, namely the WP6 priority: Understanding the Sea Level Budget.Sea level change,one of the best indicators of climate change, integrates the response of several components of the Earth system (ocean, atmosphere,cryosphere and hydrosphere) to anthropogenic and natural forcing. Studying the sea level budget helps to better understand processes at work and follow temporal changes (e.g., acceleration) of individual components. It increases our understanding on uncertaintiesof different observing systems and models. It also allows placing bounds on poorly known contributions (e.g., deep >2000 m ocean warming, not measured by current observing systems), constraining current Earth’s energy imbalance and validating climate models used for simulating future climate.The overall objective of SLBC_cci+ is to go beyond the already remarkable closure of the Sea Level Budget achieved by SLBC_cci and further reduce the uncertainty of the individual components and of their sum, allowing a better quantification of the impact of the different processes contributing to GMSL change. Since 2017 there is a higher misclosure than in the preceding years in the time series. A special investigation on the causes studying carefully each contributor is required. A bettercharacterisation of sea level fingerprints that supports regional studies shall be included. The reduced uncertainty in the observed GMSL will then be exploited for a reassessment of its rate of acceleration, which accuracy remains a topic under discussion.An important corollary objective is the coordinated uptake of the SLBC_cci+ results by the sea level modelling community and climate research community, both directly and via participation in the CCI CMUG, leading to a reduction of the uncertainty in the projections of 21st century sea level rise.Salient deliverables are a time series of global sea level budget components, and associated uncertainties for each component, with at least monthly time-resolution, including the contributions of new satellite missions up to 2022;the provision the framework to support regional and coastal sea level budget closure studies in terms of consolidated methodology, quantification of uncertainty and sea level fingerprints; an evaluation of the impact on the sea level budget, and in particular on the ocean mass budget, of those CCI ECVs not previously considered, leading to the inclusion of those that significantly improve the closure. Finally, the Contractor will prepare a scientific roadmap for the continuation of the study and the possible uptake of the SLBC assessment by operational climate services such as C3S.

Directorate: Directorate of EO Programmes
Estabilishment: ESRIN
ECOS Required: No
Classified: No
Price Range: > 500 KEURO
Authorised Contact Person: Nathalie Boisard
Initiating Service: EOP-SDR
IP Measure: N/A
Prog. Reference: E/0073-01 – EWatch – Climate CH.
Tender Type: Open Competition
Open To Tenderers From: AT+BE+CA+CH+DE+DK+GR+ES+FI+FR+GB+IE+IT+LU+NL+NO+PT+RO+SE
Technology Keywords: 26-OTHERS
Products Keywords: 2-P-Other