CoAuthors

Frauke Albrecht (Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), University of Concepción, Chile); Tilo Schöne (GFZ, Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam, Germany); Zhiguo Deng (GFZ, Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam, Germany)

The yearly mean distribution of sea level in the North Sea is reconstructed from tide gauge and satellite altimeter data starting in 1900. Empirical orthogonal functions (EOF) estimated from yearly mean Topex, Jason-1 and Jason-2 data were combined with historical tide gauge data from around the North Sea obtained from the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL). The tide gauge data from PSMSL are corrected for vertical land movement based on GPS data in the vicinity of the tide gauge stations The GPS data have been reprocessed at GFZ based on data between 1994 and 2012. The first four EOFs of the altimetry data already account for almost 96% of the variance and there is a good agreement between tide gauge and collocated altimeter data for the last 20 years. The spatial distribution of the reconstructed sea level trend and the decadal sea level variability during the last hundred years is further investigated.