The idea for the Bulletin originated at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Global Sea Level Observing System (GLOSS) in Bordeaux in February 1995. GLOSS is primarily a worldwide tide gauge project. However, we hope that articles in the Bulletin will cover a wide range of sea level interests, while remaining relevant to tide gauge sea level work, and that readers from other sea level backgrounds (altimetry, geology etc.) will find the items interesting.
We plan for there to be 2 or 3 issues of the Bulletin each year with perhaps 10 articles in each. As information on the WWW can easily be copied, we would be very pleased if people involved in GLOSS in other countries around the world could take from the Bulletin whatever appeals to them, and make their own newsletters tuned to their regional or national requirements. We plan to do this to some extent ourselves by sharing relevant articles with the Afro-America GLOSS News, a newsletter produced on paper, with most articles in Spanish and Portuguese, and published by IOC and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. If you would like a copy of that, mail Professor Afranio Rubens de Mesquita at ardmesqu@fox.cce.usp.br.
In each issue of the Bulletin, we would like to see a wide range of material. For example, we would like to have items discussing recent developments in tide gauge hardware and sea level analysis software. Then, we could have reports of experiences in installing gauges around the world, in particular those gauges which are going to contribute to GLOSS. Articles on the status of GLOSS itself and on regional sea level monitoring programmes could also be included. In addition, we would like to see short reports to demonstrate that there are scientific, operational and perhaps commercial markets out there for the GLOSS sea level products.
The above list is not exclusive, however. Personally, I would be happy to see also short articles on geological or archaeological sea level research, for example, if they help us understand the tide gauge sea level data further. Also bottom pressure recorders and inverted echo sounders should not be forgotten, as they provide quasi-sea level information from the deep ocean. The complementarity between tide gauges and satellite altimetry in monitoring future sea level changes is a topic which has been debated intensively recently in the TOPEX/POSEIDON community. We include a short item on this topic in this first issue and we would welcome more articles on how measurements by the two systems together can lead to better science.
Please let us know what you think should be included in future issues, and send us any information you can on your own activities.
Many thanks to the contributors to this first issue. Happy reading!
Philip Woodworth plw@pol.ac.uk