Oostende GLOSS Course 2006

International Sea Level Data Banks

Philip L. Woodworth

Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level

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

• 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’).

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

20th Century Sea Level Rise Estimates from Tide Gauges Region, VLM Rate ± s.e.

(mm/yr)Gornitz and Lebedeff (1987) Global, Geological 1.2 + 0.3Peltier and Tushingham (1989, 1991) Global, ICE-3G/M1 2.4 + 0.9c

Trupin and Wahr (1990) Global, ICE-3G/M1 1.7 + 0.13Nakiboglu and Lambeck (1991) Global decomposition 1.2 + 0.4Shennan and Woodworth (1992) NW Europe, Geological 1.0 + 0.15Gornitz (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 + 0.1Lambeck et al. (1998) Fennoscandia, PGR Model 1.1 + 0.2Woodworth et al. (1999) UK & N Sea, Geological 1.0 + 0.2

All these analyses used the PSMSL data setFrom IPCC TAR

PSMSL Staff

• 3 Scientists• 1 Data manager

• But can call on wide-ranging expertise of other colleagues in the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory

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)

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)

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

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 IOCDr.Ruth Nielan, Director IGS Central Bureau, JPL, USADr. Gary Mitchum, University of South Florida, USAProf. Bruce Douglas, Maryland, USADr. Richard Warrick, University of Waikato, New ZealandDr. Georges Balmino, Bureau Gravimetrique International, Toulouse, France (also representing FAGS)

Reporting

All PSMSL reports are on the web

Our Web Site

http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/

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

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIISEA 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

GLOSS DELAYED MODE CENTRE atBRITISH OCEANOGRAPHICDATA 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

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

REGIONAL GLOSS Data Centres

• MedGLOSS

• Southern Ocean (now terminated)

• Oostende IOC Facility – archiving function for ODINAFRICA data

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.

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 (?)