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Estimating trends of the Mediterranean Sea level changes from tide gauge and satellite altimetry data (1993–2015)

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Abstract

The impact of climate change on sea level has re]a great deal of attention by scientists worldwide. In this context, the problem of sea levels on global and regional scales have been analyzed in a number of studies based on tide gauges observations and satellite altimetry measurements. This study focuses on trend estimates from 18 high-quality tide gauge stations along the Mediterranean Sea coast. The seasonal Mann-Kendall test was run at a 5% significance level for each of the 18 stations for the period of 1993–2015 (satellite altimetry era). The results of this test indicate that the trends for 17 stations were statistically significant and showed an increase (no significant trend was observed only at one station). The rates of sea level change for the 17 stations that exhibit significant trends, estimated using seasonal Sen’s approach, range after correction for Vertical Land Motion (VLM) from 1.48 to 8.72 mm/a for the period 1993–2015. Furthermore, the magnitude of change at the location of each tide gauge station was estimated using the satellite altimetry measurements. Thus, the results obtained agree with those from the tide-gauge data analysis.

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Acknowledgement

The authors are enormously grateful to PSMSL for providing sea level time series and to AVISO for providing altimetry data. The authors greatly thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Space Techniques (CTS), Oran, 31200, Algeria

    Hebib Taibi & Mahdi Haddad

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  1. Hebib Taibi
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  2. Mahdi Haddad
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Correspondence to Hebib Taibi.

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Taibi, H., Haddad, M. Estimating trends of the Mediterranean Sea level changes from tide gauge and satellite altimetry data (1993–2015). J. Ocean. Limnol. 37, 1176–1185 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00343-019-8164-3

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