Tide and mean sea level trend in the west coast of the Arabian Gulf from tide gauges and multi-missions satellite altimeter

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Summary Hourly data of the relative sea level from seven stations on the west coast of the Arabian Gulf, for the period 1979–2008 have been analyzed. The harmonic constituents of tide show pure diurnal tide at Murjan Island, semidiurnal type at Mina Salman and mixed type with semidiurnal dominance at the remaining five stations. Based on Multi-Missions Satellite Altimetry data, the mean sea level trend estimate was about 2.8 ± 0.4 mm/year for global ocean and about 3.6 ± 0.4 mm/year for the Arabian Gulf. Among the seven tide gauge stations, the highest sea level trend is found at Mina Salman (3.4 ± 0.98 mm/year) that agrees with the local estimate from the Multi-Missions Satellite Altimetry data. The minimum trend is found at Jubail (1.6 ± 0.71 mm/year) and Ras Tanura (0.7 ± 0.31 mm/year). At Arrabiyah Island station, the sea level trend is about 2.4 ± 0.66 mm/year, which is obtained after removing the interruptions from a relatively longer duration (15 years) data. This is in agreement with other stations and the estimates from the altimetry. The tidal analysis and trend estimation for Jubail station (29 years) have been conducted for the first time. At Murjan Island, the decadal cycle is evident from the long sea level data, giving the current estimate of trend more reliability as compared with previous studies.