What is the transient sea level sensitivity in CMIP6 models?

Many will be familiar with the concept of transient climate sensitivity: what is the transient temperature response to a doubling in CO2 concentrations? This is a key question for understanding the response of the climate system to CO2 forcing. But there are other important transient responses we need to understand. One of these is the response of global mean sea level to CO2 forcing, which we can call the Transient Sea Level Sensitivity (TSLS). Sea level rise is one of the most serious consequences of climate warming but making projections of it has proved challenging. The TSLS will depend on the coupled climate system response and how glaciers and ice sheets respond to atmospheric and oceanic changes. The aim of this project is to determine the TSLS of CMIP6 coupled models for the 21st century and to compare this to the TSLS that has been estimated for CMIP5 and previous IPCC class experiments in Grinsted and Christensen 2021. This will be achieved by determining the mean response of the oceans and land ice to a change in temperature averaged over multiple decades. We will also explore the spread in TSLS amongst model simulations and the level of confidence we have in the ensemble mean.