Abstract
Here I analyze the relative sea level signals from the tide gauges of North America. Linear and parabolic fittings are used to compute relative rates of rise and accelerations. There are 20 long-term-trend (LTT) tide gauges along the (Pacific) West Coast of North America. The average relative rate of rise is −0.38 mm/year, and the average acceleration is +0.0012 mm/year2. There are 33 LTT tide gauges of the (Atlantic) East Coast of North America. The average relative sea level rise is 2.22 mm/year, and the average acceleration is +0.0027 mm/year2.
Keywords
- Tide gauges
- GPS
- Sea levels
- Subsidence
- North America
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.
Buying options










































References
Chambers, D., Merrifield, M. A., & Nerem, R. S. (2012). Is there a 60-year oscillation in global mean sea level? Geophysical Research Letters, 39, 18.
Schlesinger, M., & Ramankutty, N. (1994). An oscillation in the global climate system of period 65-70 years. Nature, 367, 723–726.
Galloway, D. L., Jones, D. R. & Ingebritsen, S. E. (1999). Land subsidence in the United States (Vol. 1182). United States Geological Survey. Retrieved from https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1182/.
Galloway, D. L., Bawden, G. W., Leake, S. A., & Honegger D. G. (2008). Land subsidence hazards. In R. L. Baum, D. L. Galloway, & E. L. Harp (Eds.), Landslide and land subsidence hazards to pipelines (chapter 2). U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2008-1164. Retrieved from http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1164/.
National Research Council. (1991). Mitigating losses from land subsidence in the United States (58p). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Davis, G. H. (1987). Land subsidence and sea level rise on the Atlantic Coastal Plain of the United States. Environmental Geology and Water Sciences, 10(2), 67–80.
Johnson, D. W. (1917). Is the Atlantic coast sinking? Geographical Review, 3(2), 135–139.
Karegar, M. A., Dixon, T. H., & Engelhart, S. E. (2016). Subsidence along the Atlantic Coast of North America: Insights from GPS and late Holocene relative sea level data. Geophysical Research Letters, 43(7), 3126–3133.
United States Geological Survey. (2000). Land subsidence in the United States. United States Geological Survey Fact Sheet-087-00. Retrieved from https://water.usgs.gov/ogw/gwrp/fs2001/test1/.
Galloway, D. L., & Sneed, M. (2013). Analysis and simulation of regional subsidence accompanying groundwater abstraction and compaction of susceptible aquifer systems in the USA. Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, 65(1), 123–136.
Blewitt, G., Kreemer, C., Hammond, W. C., & Gazeaux, J. (2016). MIDAS robust trend estimator for accurate GNSS station velocities without step detection. Journal of Geophysical Research, 121. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JB012552.
Wöppelmann, G., & Marcos, M. (2016). Vertical land motion as a key to understanding sea level change and variability. Reviews of Geophysics, 54(1), 64–92.
Houston, J. R., & Dean, R. G. (2011). Sea-level acceleration based on U.S. tide gauges and extensions of previous global-gauge analyses. Journal of Coastal Research, 27, 409–417.
Boretti, A. (2012). Short term comparison of climate model predictions and satellite altimeter measurements of sea levels. Coastal Engineering, 60, 319–322.
Boretti, A. (2012). Is there any support in the long term tide gauge data to the claims that parts of Sydney will be swamped by rising sea levels? Coastal Engineering, 64, 161–167.
Parker, A. (2013). Sea level trends at locations of the United States with more than 100 years of recording. Natural Hazards, 65(1), 1011–1021.
Parker, A., & Ollier, C. D. (2017). California sea level rise: Evidence based forecasts vs. model predictions. Ocean & Coastal Management, 149, 198–209.
Parker, A., & Ollier, C. D. (2017). Short-term tide gauge records from one location are inadequate to infer global sea-level acceleration. Earth Systems and Environment, 1(2), 17.
Acknowledgment
The author received no funding and declares no competing interests.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boretti, A. (2020). The Nonlinear Pattern of Sea Levels: A Case Study of North America. In: Jazar, R., Dai, L. (eds) Nonlinear Approaches in Engineering Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18963-1_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18963-1_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-18962-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-18963-1
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)