TY - JOUR
T1 - Coastal Sea Level and Related Fields from Existing Observing Systems
AU - Marcos, Marta
AU - Wöppelmann, Guy
AU - Matthews, Andrew
AU - Ponte, Rui M.
AU - Birol, Florence
AU - Ardhuin, Fabrice
AU - Coco, Giovanni
AU - Santamaría-Gómez, Alvaro
AU - Ballu, Valerie
AU - Testut, Laurent
AU - Chambers, Don
AU - Stopa, Justin E.
PY - 2019/1/1
Y1 - 2019/1/1
N2 - We review the status of current sea-level observing systems with a focus on the coastal zone. Tide gauges are the major source of coastal sea-level observations monitoring most of the world coastlines, although with limited extent in Africa and part of South America. The longest tide gauge records, however, are unevenly distributed and mostly concentrated along the European and North American coasts. Tide gauges measure relative sea level but the monitoring of vertical land motion through high-precision GNSS, despite being essential to disentangle land and ocean contributions in tide gauge records, is only available in a limited number of stations. (25% of tide gauges have a GNSS station at less than 10 km.) Other data sources are new in situ observing systems fostered by recent progress in GNSS data processing (e.g., GPS reflectometry, GNSS-towed platforms) and coastal altimetry currently measuring sea level as close as 5 km from the coastline. Understanding observed coastal sea level also requires information on various contributing processes, and we provide an overview of some other relevant observing systems, including those on (offshore and coastal) wind waves and water density and mass changes.
AB - We review the status of current sea-level observing systems with a focus on the coastal zone. Tide gauges are the major source of coastal sea-level observations monitoring most of the world coastlines, although with limited extent in Africa and part of South America. The longest tide gauge records, however, are unevenly distributed and mostly concentrated along the European and North American coasts. Tide gauges measure relative sea level but the monitoring of vertical land motion through high-precision GNSS, despite being essential to disentangle land and ocean contributions in tide gauge records, is only available in a limited number of stations. (25% of tide gauges have a GNSS station at less than 10 km.) Other data sources are new in situ observing systems fostered by recent progress in GNSS data processing (e.g., GPS reflectometry, GNSS-towed platforms) and coastal altimetry currently measuring sea level as close as 5 km from the coastline. Understanding observed coastal sea level also requires information on various contributing processes, and we provide an overview of some other relevant observing systems, including those on (offshore and coastal) wind waves and water density and mass changes.
KW - Sea-level observations
KW - Tide gauges
KW - Coastal altimetry
KW - GNSS
KW - Wind waves
KW - Ocean bottom pressure
KW - Hydrography
UR - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/1394
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-019-09513-3
U2 - 10.1007/s10712-019-09513-3
DO - 10.1007/s10712-019-09513-3
M3 - Article
VL - 40
JO - Surveys in Geophysics
JF - Surveys in Geophysics
ER -