Closing the sea level budget on a regional scale: Trends and variability on the Northwestern European continental shelf

Thomas Frederikse, Riccardo Riva, Marcel Kleinherenbrink, Yoshihide Wada, Michiel van den Broeke, Ben Marion

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

48 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Long-term trends and decadal variability of sea level in the North Sea and along the Norwegian coast have been studied over the period 1958–2014. We model the spatially nonuniform sea level and solid earth response to large-scale ice melt and terrestrial water storage changes. GPS observations, corrected for the solid earth deformation, are used to estimate vertical land motion. We find a
clear correlation between sea level in the North Sea and along the Norwegian coast and open ocean steric variability in the Bay of Biscay and west of Portugal, which is consistent with the presence of wind-driven coastally trapped waves. The observed nodal cycle is consistent with tidal equilibrium. We are able to explain the observed sea level trend over the period 1958–2014 well within the standard error of the sum of all contributing processes, as well as the large majority of the observed decadal sea level variability.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10,864-10,872
Number of pages9
JournalGeophysical Research Letters
Volume43
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Sept 2016

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