Coastal Sea Level and Related Fields from Existing Observing Systems

Abstract

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.