Revisiting the trend analysis of relative mean sea level rise at Oostende (southern North Sea – Belgian coast). Report CREST/X/JO/201906/EN/TR02
Ozer, J.; Ponsar, S.; Van den Eynde, D. (2019). Revisiting the trend analysis of relative mean sea level rise at Oostende (southern North Sea – Belgian coast). Report CREST/X/JO/201906/EN/TR02. Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Operational Directorate Natural Environment: Brussels. vi, 21 pp. |
| Available in | Authors | | Document type: Project report
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| Abstract | To analyze how mean sea level has evolved during the last 80 years along the Belgian coast, a time series of yearly mean values covering the period 1936-2016 has been built with the data from the PSMSL, available at the station Oostende. Five different models have been fitted to these data. The MSL level rise over the whole period is estimated at 1.72 mm/yr. This is the largest sea level rise ever reported for this station. This rise is in fairly good agreement with the global average sea level rise estimated for the 20th century. Models in which the mean sea level rise is allowed to vary in time generally fit better with the data than the simple linear regression model. When the data are fitted with a broken line, the model indicates a change in the sea level rise around 1972, with a clear higher sea level rise during the second period, than during the first period. A sea level rise of 1.72 mm/yr is observed and that there are some indications that the sea level rise is increasing. When taking the entire time series into account, the sea level rise over the period 1972-2016 seems to be around 2.39 mm/yr, which is a clear increase. The nodal cycle of about 18 years is however not included in the analysis and could influence the results. Therefore, the results still should be treated with caution. |
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