Abstract

Assessment of present sea level velocity and acceleration in Europe

Author(s): Albert Parker

There is an open debate about the present sea level velocity and acceleration in Europe. Despite some uncertainty due the quality and length of the records, on average the European tide gauges show sea levels with very small velocity and negligible acceleration at the present time The average sea level rise for Europe is -0.432 mm/y with a 95%confidence interval of 0.391mm/y (76 tide gauges of average record length 101.0 years, average completeness 91.9%).Without considering the stations in Sweden, Finland and Norway, the average sea level rise is 1.35 mm/y with a 95%confidence interval of 0.36 mm/y (46 stations of average record length 101.6 years and completeness of 91.34%). Because of this present lack of acceleration about the low velocities of the tide gauge results, the lower bound of future sea level rise scenarios should be lowered to the simple continuation of the trend measured so far.