Recent multiyear trends in the Baltic Sea level

Sea level rise is one of the most direct consequences of climate change. It has been documented that sea level rise is globally subject to considerable spatial heterogeneity. There is an increased awareness of the need to create regional data records and projections of sea level trends, because spec...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Małgorzata Stramska, Natalia Chudziak
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/c8e0eaf6190840d8854f86f20f90a577
Description
Summary:Sea level rise is one of the most direct consequences of climate change. It has been documented that sea level rise is globally subject to considerable spatial heterogeneity. There is an increased awareness of the need to create regional data records and projections of sea level trends, because specific regional processes can cause regional trends to diverge significantly from global averages. In this paper available multimission satellite altimetry data were used to estimate the multiyear trend in the Baltic Sea level. The estimated trend is about 0.33 cm yr -1 , similar to the globally averaged sea level trend, but significantly larger than the regional trends estimated in the North Sea and North Atlantic. The decadal scale variability in the sea level trend in the Baltic Sea does not indicate a significant acceleration of the trend in recent years. Our analysis confirms that the interannual variability of sea level in the Baltic in winter is significantly correlated with the North Atlantic Oscillation index.