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Tides and Sea Level

People interested in tidal analysis of sea level data, whether for study of the tides themselves or for the purpose of data quality control, could find the following useful for the background science:

• Doodson, A.T. and Warburg, H.D. 1941. Admiralty manual of tides. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London.

• Forrester, W.D. 1983. Canadian Tidal Manual. Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Ottawa, 138pp.

• Pugh, D.T. 1987. Tides, surges and mean sea-level: a handbook for engineers and scientists. Wiley, Chichester, 472pp.

  This book is now out of print but a free pdf can be downloaded from http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/19157/ .

• Open University, 1989. Waves, tides and shallow-water processes. Open University Oceanography Series Vol.4. Oxford: Pergamon Press in association with the Open University, 187pp.

• Tomczak, M. and Stewart, R.H. 2002. Physical Oceanography (version 4.0). A cdrom produced for the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). Email Matthias.Tomczak@flinders.edu.au for a copy. The cd contains text book material written by Bob Stewart available in updated form from http://oceanworld.tamu.edu

• Pugh, D.T. 2004. Changing sea levels. Effects of tides, weather and climate. Cambridge University Press, 280pp.

  See the publisher's web site for an excerpt from the book.

• Simon, B. 2007. La Maree Oceanique Cotiere. Institut Oceanographique. ISBN: 2903581320. Available free of charge from the SHOM website in French and English (registration required).

• PCTMSL. 2007. Australian Tides Manual. Permanent Committee for Tides and Mean Sea Level Special Publication No.9.

• Tidal Analysis and Prediction. NOAA Special Publication NOS CO-OPS 3. U.S. Department of Commerce. 2007. This is the NOAA Tidal Manual edited by Bruce B. Parker. Copies can be obtained via http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov.

• Pugh, D.T. and Woodworth, P.L. 2014. Sea-level science : understanding tides, surges tsunamis and mean sea-level changes. Cambridge University Press, 407pp.

• Shennan, I., Long, A.J. and Horton, B.P. 2015. Handbook of Sea-Level Research. Wiley, 600pp.

Simple explanations of tides can be found through:

• the "Education" and "Help & About" sections of the NOAA/NOS Centre for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services.

• also the "Publications" pages of the NOAA/NOS Centre for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services. This includes for example a nice introduction to tides by Steacy Hicks.

• Tides module in the Marine Met/Oceans section of the MetEd website, operated by the Comet Program. (registration required)

• Sea Level FAQs on the PSMSL web pages

A Tidal Glossary (edited by David Pugh) is contained in the American Meteorological Society Glossary of Meteorology (ed. T S Glickman) 2000 and also in the 2004 book by David Pugh referred to above.

A history of tidal research can be found in:

• Cartwright, D.E. 1999. Tides - a scientific history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 292pp.

For a discussion of primarily the geological information to be extracted from the PSMSL data set, see:

• Emery, K.O. and Aubrey, D.G. 1991. Sea levels, land levels, and tide gauges. New York: Springer-Verlag. 237pp.

Sea level changes over various timescales and their impacts are discussed in:

• Douglas, B.C., Kearney, M.S. and Leatherman, S.P. 2000. Sea level rise: history and consequences. Academic Press. 272pp.

• Sea Level Science: Theme Volume of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

• Church, J.A., Woodworth, P.L., Aarup, T. and Wilson, W.S. 2010. Understanding Sea-level Rise and Variability Wiley-Blackwell, London. ISBN 978-1-4443-3451-7 (hardback) 978-1-4443-3452-4 (paperback). 428pp.

For a description of sea level changes on geological timescales, see:

• Pirazzoli, P.A. 1996. Sea-level changes: the last 20,000 years. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. 211pp.

For a description of tsunamis and their impacts, see:

• Bryant, E. 2001. Tsunami. The underrated hazard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

For sea levels measured from space by satellite radar altimetry, see:

• Reading list (3)

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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Reports

For an extensive discussion of recent climate change-related aspects of sea level, and of impacts of sea level change, see the Scientific Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. These include reports from Working Groups I and II (Scientific Assessment and Impacts of Climate Change).

Chapters on sea level in the Second Assessment Report (SAR) from 1995 can be referenced as:

• Warrick, R.A., Le Provost, C., Meier, M.F., Oerlemans, J. and Woodworth, P.L. 1996. Lead authors of Chapter 7 (Changes in sea level) of Climate Change 1995. The science of climate change. Contribution of working group I to the second assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds. J.T.Houghton, L.G.Meira Filho, B.A.Callander, N.Harris, A.Kattenberg and K.Maskell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 572pp.

• Bijlsma, L. et al. 1996. Lead authors of Chapter 9 (Coastal zones and small islands) of Climate Change 1995. Impacts, adaptations and mitigation of climate change: scientific-technical analysis. Contribution of working group II to the second assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds. R.T.Watson, M.C.Zinyowera and R.H.Moss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 879pp.

The IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) from 2001 again included Working Groups I and II and also a WG III on Mitigation Strategies. Full texts of these reports, together with Summaries for Policymakers for each Working Group (i.e. summaries of the whole reports, not just sea level) can still be downloaded from the IPCC web site.

The sea level chapter in the TAR Working Group I report can be referenced as:

• Church, J.A., Gregory, J.M., Huybrechts, P., Kuhn, M., Lambeck, K., Nhuan, M.T., Qin, D. and Woodworth, P.L. 2001. Changes in sea level. In, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (eds. J.T. Houghton, Y. Ding, D.J. Griggs, M. Noguer, P.J. van der Linden, X. Dai, K. Maskell and C.A. Johnson). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 881pp.

In the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) from 2007, sea level changes were included in a chapter which also discussed hydrographic changes in the ocean. The reference is:

• Bindoff, N. and Willebrand, J. 2007. Chapter 5: Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level. pp.385-432 in, IPCC, 2007: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds. Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen, Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M. and Miller, H.L.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 996pp.

and this can also be downloaded from the IPCC web site.

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) was published in 2013, and contains an entire chapter dedicated to sea level rise:

• Church, J.A., P.U. Clark, A. Cazenave, J.M. Gregory, S. Jevrejeva, A. Levermann, M.A. Merrifield, G.A. Milne, R.S. Nerem, P.D. Nunn, A.J. Payne, W.T. Pfeffer, D. Stammer and A.S. Unnikrishnan, 2013: Sea Level Change. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA

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UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) and UK Climate Projections (UKCP) Reports

For people in the UK, the UKCIP reports on future climate may also be worth reading. Also see the recent UKCP09 report which includes a marine and coastal projections component.