Towards a global higher‐frequency sea level dataset

Woodworth, Philip L.; Hunter, John; Marcos, Marta; Caldwell, Patrick C.; Menéndez, Margarita; Haigh, Ivan D.

doi:10.1002/gdj3.42

Cited by 168 publications

(161 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Comprehensive recent compilations of tide gauge data by the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center (https://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/) and the Global Extreme Sea Level Analysis project (Woodworth et al, ; http://www.gesla.org/) have enabled quasi‐global studies of changes in tides (Müller et al, ; Woodworth, ). These surveys confirmed results of Ray () and Jay () for North America and identified robust features of tidal evolution in other areas (Figure ).…”

Section: Past Changes In Tidesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Only over the past 20 years (since the digitization, concatenation, and public dissemination of regional and global databases of tide gauge records; Woodworth et al, ) has it been determined that significant and widespread positive and negative trends in tidal levels (and tidal currents) are occurring at many locations around the world (e.g., Devlin et al, ; Feng et al, ; Flick et al, ; Jay, ; Müller et al, ; Ray, ; Talke et al, ; Talke & Jay, ; Woodworth, ). Remarkably, the rates of tidal level changes observed are of similar magnitudes to the rate of mean sea level (MSL) rise at some sites; for example, Mawdsley et al () found increases in tidal range at Astoria (USA), Wilmington (USA), Delfzijl (the Netherlands), Cuxhaven (Germany), and Calais (France) of >25 cm over the last century.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Tides They Are A‐Changin': A Comprehensive Review of Past and Future Nonastronomical Changes in Tides, Their Driving Mechanisms, and Future Implications

Haigh

Pickering

Green

et al. 2020

Reviews of Geophysics

158

173

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Scientists and engineers have observed for some time that tidal amplitudes at many locations are shifting considerably due to nonastronomical factors. Here we review comprehensively these important changes in tidal properties, many of which remain poorly understood. Over long geological time scales, tectonic processes drive variations in basin size, depth, and shape and hence the resonant properties of ocean basins. On shorter geological time scales, changes in oceanic tidal properties are dominated by variations in water depth. A growing number of studies have identified widespread, sometimes regionally coherent, positive, and negative trends in tidal constituents and levels during the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries. Determining the causes is challenging because a tide measured at a coastal gauge integrates the effects of local, regional, and oceanic changes. Here, we highlight six main factors that can cause changes in measured tidal statistics on local scales and a further eight possible regional/global driving mechanisms. Since only a few studies have combined observations and models, or modeled at a temporal/spatial resolution capable of resolving both ultralocal and large‐scale global changes, the individual contributions from local and regional mechanisms remain uncertain. Nonetheless, modeling studies project that sea level rise and climate change will continue to alter tides over the next several centuries, with regionally coherent modes of change caused by alterations to coastal morphology and ice sheet extent. Hence, a better understanding of the causes and consequences of tidal variations is needed to help assess the implications for coastal defense, risk assessment, and ecological change.

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Section: Past Changes In Tidesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Tides They Are A‐Changin': A Comprehensive Review of Past and Future Nonastronomical Changes in Tides, Their Driving Mechanisms, and Future Implications

Haigh

Pickering

Green

et al. 2020

Reviews of Geophysics

158

173

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“…The Gumbel scale parameter for a certain location can be derived from historical records of high-frequency sea-level measurements (see Figure 2 for four examples). Here, we use data from the GESLA-2 database (Global Extreme Sea Level Analysis Version 2 [22,23]), which contains high-frequency records (at least hourly) from 1300 tide gauge stations as of February 2016. Gumbel distributions were fitted to the annual maxima (expressed relative to the linear trend in mean sea level over the record) of each of the 658 tide gauges, using the Matlab R evfit (Mathworks, Natick, MA, USA) function, as described in Hunter et al [26].…”

Section: The Statistics Of Sea-level Extremesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we use a Gumbel parameterisation, which will allow us to compute the allowances following Hunter [9] and Hunter et al [10]. We use the GESLA-2 tide gauge dataset (Global Extreme Sea Level Analysis Version 2 [22,23], Section 2.2), which significantly increases the number of locations with respect to previous studies of allowances [9,10]. Finally, we show the increase in the frequency of sea level extremes under the RCP8.5 scenario if the allowances are not applied (Section 3.3).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Uncertainties in Ice Sheet Dynamics on Sea-Level Allowances at Tide Gauge Locations

Slangen

Wal

Reerink

et al. 2017

JMSE

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Sea level is projected to rise in the coming centuries as a result of a changing climate. One of the major uncertainties is the projected contribution of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to sea-level rise (SLR). Here, we study the impact of different shapes of uncertainty distributions of the ice sheets on so-called sea-level allowances. An allowance indicates the height a coastal structure needs to be elevated to keep the same frequency and likelihood of sea-level extremes under a projected amount of mean SLR. Allowances are always larger than the projected SLR. Their magnitude depends on several factors, such as projection uncertainty and the typical variability of the extreme events at a location. Our results show that allowances increase significantly for ice sheet dynamics' uncertainty distributions that are more skewed (more than twice, compared to Gaussian uncertainty distributions), due to the increased probability of a much larger ice sheet contribution to SLR. The allowances are largest in regions where a relatively small observed variability in the extremes is paired with relatively large magnitude and/or large uncertainty in the projected SLR, typically around the equator. Under the RCP8.5 (Representative Concentration Pathway) projections of SLR, the likelihood of extremes increases more than a factor 10 4 at more than 50-87% of the tide gauges.

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“…GESLA, which was updated in 2016, now contains 1,355 records from around the world, with more than 39,000 station-years (the number of stations multiplied by the length of their records) of data 5 . Most date from the second half of the twentieth century.…”

Section: Combing Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attack of the extreme floods

Witze¹

2018

Nature

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knew what was heading for his hometown: category-5 Hurricane Irma, which had already battered much of the Caribbean. He got on the plane anyway. "It was me, the pilot and a few Disney tourists who just didn't care, " he says.Irma's heavy rains and powerful winds killed dozens of people across Florida. For Wahl, who rode out the storm in his family's one-bedroom apartment, the experience was a rare chance to witness first-hand a phenomenon he has long worried about: extreme sea levels -what happens when storm surges, high tides and waves combine.Extreme sea-level events can send water pouring over coastal barriers, swamping people's homes and drowning crucial infrastructure. They've happened, for example, in New Orleans in Louisiana and the surrounding region -still recovering from more than US$100 billion in damages caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 -and in Jacksonville, Florida, where Irma swamped parts of the city under 2 metres of water, trapping residents and closing bridges and the city's international airport.Globally, mean sea level is rising by just over 3 millimetres a year, as glaciers and ice caps melt and warming ocean water expands. Researchers have typically focused on understanding the causes and rate of that rise. But swelling seas are also expected to affect extreme sea levels, with devastating effects. In the coming decades, 100-year floods -those that have a 1% chance of hitting in a given year, or an average return interval of 100 years -could occur as often as every year or two (see 'The coming floods'). Across Europe, the cost of coastal flooding could rise by more than a factor of 20 by the year 2100 (ref. 1). And in some regions, the intensity of what constitutes a 100-year flood will become much more severe.Wahl and a small band of colleagues say that more scientists need to pay attention to the shifting nature of these calamitous events and how they will affect those living near the coast. Such floods will be one of the biggest The cruellest seasExtreme floods will become more common as sea levels rise. © 2 0 1 8 M a c m i l l a n P u b l i s h e r s L i m i t e d , p a r t o f S p r i n g e r N a t u r e . A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d .

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Towards a global higher‐frequency sea level dataset

Cited by 168 publications

References 17 publications

The Tides They Are A‐Changin': A Comprehensive Review of Past and Future Nonastronomical Changes in Tides, Their Driving Mechanisms, and Future Implications

The Tides They Are A‐Changin': A Comprehensive Review of Past and Future Nonastronomical Changes in Tides, Their Driving Mechanisms, and Future Implications

The Impact of Uncertainties in Ice Sheet Dynamics on Sea-Level Allowances at Tide Gauge Locations

Attack of the extreme floods

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