International Sea Level Data Banks

1. International Sea Level Data Banks Philip L. Woodworth Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level

2. PERMANENT SERVICE FOR • MEAN SEA LEVEL • (PSMSL) • Established by IUGG in 1933 and member of FAGS • Responsible for - collection, - analysis (including research as high level quality control), - distribution of monthly and annual MSL data, - provision of a wider ‘Service’ • Funding from FAGS, IOC and NERC

3. Data bank contains • - 53,000 station-years of information from almost • 2,000 stations in • 200 ‘countries’ or coastlines, • - 1,500 station-years added per year • If possible, all records converted to a Revised Local Reference (i.e. common station datum) • Data used throughout oceanography, climate change, geology and geodesy (Most obvious application being ‘sea level rise’).

5. Global Sea Level Change: Long records from each continent from PSMSL data bank. Most records show evidence for rising sea levels during the past century IPCC concluded that there has been a global rise of approximately 10-20 cm during the past 100 years

6. 20th Century Sea Level Rise Estimates from Tide Gauges Region, VLM Rate ± s.e. (mm/yr) Gornitz and Lebedeff (1987) Global, Geological 1.2 + 0.3 Peltier and Tushingham (1989, 1991) Global, ICE-3G/M1 2.4 + 0.9c Trupin and Wahr (1990) Global, ICE-3G/M1 1.7 + 0.13 Nakiboglu and Lambeck (1991) Global decomposition 1.2 + 0.4 Shennan and Woodworth (1992) NW Europe, Geological 1.0 + 0.15 Gornitz (1995)d NA E Coast, Geological 1.5 + 0.7c Mitrovica and Davis (1995), Davis and Mitrovica (1996) Far field, PGR Model 1.4 + 0.4c Davis and Mitrovica (1996) NA E Coast, PGR Model 1.5 + 0.3c Peltier (1996) NA E Coast, ICE-4G/M2 1.9 + 0.6c Peltier and Jiang (1997) NA E Coast, Geological 2.0 + 0.6c Peltier and Jiang (1997) Global, ICE-4G/M2 1.8 + 0.6c Douglas (1997)d Global ICE-3G/M1 1.8 + 0.1 Lambeck et al. (1998) Fennoscandia, PGR Model 1.1 + 0.2 Woodworth et al. (1999) UK & N Sea, Geological 1.0 + 0.2 All these analyses used the PSMSL data set From IPCC TAR

7. PSMSL Staff • 3 Scientists • 1 Data manager • But can call on wide-ranging expertise of other colleagues in the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory

8. Data Receipts • On average, 1500 station-years entered into data bank each year. • All regions are represented, although most data continues to be from Europe, N America and Japan • Gaps in S America, Africa and parts of Asia receiving attention as part of GLOSS •  All data now distributed via web (occasional CD)

9. Publications • The PSMSL has a responsibility to publish scientific results on sea level changes, as well as collect data. • Main papers are listed each year in PSMSL Annual Reports • Notable papers : • Sea level chapter of IPCC Third Assessment Report (2001) • Review of use of tide gauges during WOCE for Oceanography & Marine Biology (2001) • Review of work of PSMSL for Journal of Coastal Research (2003) • Review of science of sea level change for The Sea (2004) • Sea level and ocean chapter of IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2006)

10. Service Aspects • Technical advice to tide gauge operators • Data processing advice to network operators and scientists • Scientific advice to Governments (e.g. UK Government Chief Scientist) • General advice to members of the public (many now covered by web Frequently Asked Questions). All letters and emails are replied to

11. Reporting • The PSMSL reports formally to the IAPSO Commission on MSL and Tides • Also reports to FAGS Council • PSMSL also has an Advisory Group: • Dr. David Pugh, President FAGS and IOC • Dr.Ruth Nielan, Director IGS Central Bureau, JPL, USA • Dr. Gary Mitchum, University of South Florida, USA • Prof. Bruce Douglas, Maryland, USA • Dr. Richard Warrick, University of Waikato, New Zealand • Dr. Georges Balmino, Bureau Gravimetrique International, Toulouse, France (also representing FAGS)

12. Reporting All PSMSL reports are on the web Our Web Site http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/

13. National and International Data Banks for Higher Frequency Data i.e. for the original measurements (hourly values or similar) See www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/programmes/ See also the data banks especially related to the GLOSS programmes www.gloss-sealevel.org

14. UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII • SEA LEVEL CENTER • (UHSLC) • Originally established as a centre for TOGA programme • Later became one of the WOCE sea level centres • Now the major GLOSS Fast and Real-Time Centre • Research Quality Data Set (RQDS) also produced • Also responsible to IOC for upgrades to IOTWS

16. GLOSS DELAYED MODE CENTRE at • BRITISH OCEANOGRAPHIC • DATA CENTRE (BODC) • ALONGSIDE PSMSL • Located at POL in Liverpool alongside PSMSL (also a delayed mode centre) • GLOSS delayed mode centre collects ‘higher frequency’ (e.g. hourly or more frequent) data from GLOSS sites • Responsible for the GLOSS Handbook and GLOSS web pages

18. Each of these GLOSS and other Centres have their own formats • Translation programs exist to convert data files between the UHSLC and GLOSS DM (PSMSL) centres and into TASK format • However, there are always occasions when one needs to convert from a new format – some programming skills needed

19. REGIONAL GLOSS Data Centres • MedGLOSS • Southern Ocean (now terminated) • Oostende IOC Facility – archiving function for ODINAFRICA data

20. There are also GLOSS Resources e.g. • Web Pages, Newsletters etc. in • South America • China • Africa • etc. • From these you can find links to data etc.

22. GLOSS Africa Web Pages • Who is responsible – they are somewhat out of date ? • Could not the web pages for the Odinafrica sea level activities be merged with existing GLOSS Africa? • Especially for news, access to data from the new stations  Volunteers required (?)