Vertical crustal motion derived from satellite altimetry and tide gauges, and comparisons with DORIS measurements

Abstract

A somewhat unorthodox method for determining vertical crustal motion at a tide-gauge location is to difference the sea level time series with an equivalent time series determined from satellite altimetry. To the extent that both instruments measure an identical ocean signal, the difference will be dominated by vertical land motion at the gauge. We revisit this technique by analyzing sea level signals at 28 tide gauges that are colocated with DORIS geodetic stations. Comparisons of altimeter-gauge vertical rates with DORIS rates yield a median difference of 1.8 mm yr −1 and a weighted root-mean-square difference of 2.7 mm yr −1. The latter suggests that our uncertainty estimates, which are primarily based on an assumed AR(1) noise process in all time series, underestimates the true errors. Several sources of additional error are discussed, including possible scale errors in the terrestrial reference frame to which altimeter-gauge rates are mostly insensitive. One of our stations, Malè, Maldives, which has been the subject of some uninformed arguments about sea-level rise, is found to have almost no vertical motion, and thus is vulnerable to rising sea levels.