Sea level accelerations at globally distributed tide gauge stations during the satellite altimetry era

Abstract

This observational study reports that several globally distributed tide gauge stations exhibit a propensity of statistically significant sea level accelerations during the satellite altimetry era. However, the magnitudes of the estimated tide gauge accelerations during this period are systematically and noticeably smaller than the global mean sea level acceleration reported by recent analyses of satellite altimetry. The differences are likely to be caused by the interannual, decadal and interdecadal sea level variations, which are modeled using a broken trend model with overlapping harmonics in the analyses of tide gauge data but omitted in the analysis of satellite altimetry.

Keywords

• climate change
• satellite altimetry
• sea level acceleration
• tide gauges. broken trend model