Abstract
We systematically assimilate a wide range of historical sea level data from around the coast of Great Britain, much of it previously unpublished, into a single comprehensive framework. We show that this greatly increased dataset allows the construction of a robust and extended Mean Sea Level curve for Great Britain covering a period of more than two centuries, and confirms that the 19th century trend was much weaker than that in the 20th century and beyond. As well as attempting to maximise the amount of newly recovered sea level observations, we have also recovered the levelling metadata necessary to connect this 19th and early 20th century data with modern records. We adjust this data for known sources of variability and estimate overall uncertainties over the entire period. Data are processed in 36 regional clusters, before recombining to compute national statistics. We investigate the advantages of extending and adjusting the time series on sea level rise trends and low order variability. Confidence limits are improved by better than 60%. The weighted linear trend since 1900 for the fully adjusted data points from all clusters when averaged annually and adjusted for Glacial Isostatic Adjustment is 2.12 mm/year ± 0.02 mm/year (1-sigma). The much lower trend estimated for the 19th Century alone is 0.24 ± 0.12 mm/yr. There is an acceleration of 0.012 mm/yr2 ± 0.003 mm/yr2 in the rate of rise over the period 1813 to 2018. These trends are quite sensitive to the GIA correction used, but their differences and accelerations are not.
Highlights
The observational evidence far suggests that UK sea level rise (SLR) was low during the latter third of the 19th Century (Woodworth et al 1999, Woodworth 2018), followed by a change in slope leading to about 1.4 mm/yr average rate of rise through the 20th century (Wood worth et al, 2009a,b), and an accelerating rate averaging 2.39 mm/yr since 1958 (Hogarth et al 2020)
Hogarth et al (2020) performed a data archaeology exercise which led to improved datum control and extension of a large number of UK records, and established that the records could be considered to consist of a seasonal cycle, a component driven by local atmospheric forcing, a linear trend associated with GIA, and a Common Mode which is uniform around the UK, as well as small residual local sea level variations
Whilst this paper focuses on extending the dataset for the British Isles, a region in Northern Europe where there are already a high proportion of long time series, the methodology may prove useful for other regions which are poorly rep resented in the existing Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) dataset
Summary
The observational evidence far suggests that UK sea level rise (SLR) was low during the latter third of the 19th Century (Woodworth et al 1999, Woodworth 2018), followed by a change in slope leading to about 1.4 mm/yr average rate of rise through the 20th century (Wood worth et al, 2009a,b), and an accelerating rate averaging 2.39 mm/yr since 1958 (Hogarth et al 2020). This is consistent with a small number of European gauges with long records (Brest, Cuxhaven, Amsterdam/ Den Helder; Woodworth 2018). In parallel, Hogarth et al (2020) performed a data archaeology exercise which led to improved datum control and extension of a large number of UK records, and established that the records could be considered to consist of a seasonal cycle, a component driven by local atmospheric forcing, a linear trend associated with GIA, and a Common Mode which is uniform around the UK, as well as small residual local sea level variations
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