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A major challenge for managing impacts and implementing effective mitigation measures and adaptation strategies for coastal zones affected by future sea level (SL) rise is our limited capacity to predict SL change at the coast on relevant spatial and temporal scales. Predicting coastal SL requires the ability to monitor and simulate a multitude of physical processes affecting SL, from local effects of wind waves and river runoff to

OVERVIEWSea level is one of the most useful oceanographic parameters. Sea level data are vital to scientists for studies of fluctuations in major ocean currents and global climate change, to engineers for the design of coastal installations, to a large community engaged in what is now called "operational oceanography" (e.g. the provision of flood warnings from storm surges and tsunamis), and in local applications such as provision of tide tables and real-time data for port operations. For nearly 25 years, the Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) has provided oversight for the operation of tide gauge networks and has ensured that requirements for accuracy, frequency and latency of sea level data are met for a broad base of users. After a brief background of the program, we present a status report of GLOSS in 2009, and provide community recommendations for the future role of GLOSS in the coming decade.

a b s t r a c tThe Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) Group of Experts (GE) data archaeology group is collating tools and producing guidelines for historic sea level data. They aim to aid the discovery, scanning, digitising and quality control of analogue tide gauge charts and sea level ledgers. Their goal is to improve the quality, quantity and availability of long-term sea level data series. This paper examines different tools for the automatic digitisation of tide gauge charts, the methods available for transcribing handwritten tide gauge ledgers and possible future developments that might speed up and partially automate these processes.

The EMODnet-Physics is a Marine Observation and Data Information System that provides a single point of access to near real time and historical achieved data. It is includes systems for physical data from the whole Europe (wave height and period, temperature of the water column, wind speed and direction, salinity of the water column, horizontal velocity of the water column, light attenuation, and sea level) as monitored by fixed stations, ARGO floats, drifting buoys, gliders, and ferry-boxes. It does provide discovering of data sets (both near real time and historical data sets), viewing and free and open downloading of the data from more than 4400 platforms. Moreover, the system provides full interoperability with third-party software through WMS service, Web Service and Web catalogue in order to exchange data and products according to the most recent interoperability standards. Recent developments ensure the compatibility to the OGS-SWE (Sensor Web Enablement) standard for the description of sensors and related observations using OpenGIS specifications (SensorML, O&M, SOS).