The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level is a repository for

tide gauge A tide gauge is a device for measuring the change in sea level relative to a vertical datum. It is also known as a mareograph, marigraph, and sea-level recorder. When applied to freshwater continental water body, water bodies, the instrument may ...

data used in the measurement of long-term

sea level change The sea level has been rising from the end of the last ice age, which was around 20,000 years ago. Between 1901 and 2018, the average sea level rose by , with an increase of per year since the 1970s. This was faster than the sea level had e ...

. The PSMSL is based at the

National Oceanography Centre The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is a marine science research and technology institute based across two sites, one in Southampton and one in Liverpool, England. It is the UK’s largest institute for integrated sea level science, coastal ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It was founded in 1933 as the

IUGG The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG; , UGGI) is an international non-governmental organization dedicated to the scientific study of Earth and its space environment using geophysical and geodetic techniques. The IUGG is a me ...

Mean Sea Level Committee, and adopted as a Permanent Service of the

International Council for Science The International Council for Science (ICSU, after its former name, International Council of Scientific Unions) was an international non-governmental organization devoted to international cooperation in the advancement of science. Its members ...

(ICSU) in 1958. The tide gauge data are freely accessible by all, and consist predominantly of monthly-mean and annual-mean sea levels. The primary,"Revised Local Reference" data set has a continuous history of benchmark surveys for each gauge, ensuring that sea level is measured relative to a known land-based datum. There is also a "Metric" data set without such datum control, and a set of hourly and daily ocean bottom pressure data from the open ocean. The latter has no datum control, and the instruments are prone to calibration drift, so the bottom pressure data are useful only for oscillations with periods significantly shorter than the length of an individual instrument deployment (typically 1 year). The PSMSL is financially supported by the UK

Natural Environment Research Council The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is a British Research Councils UK, research council that supports research, training and knowledge transfer activities in the environmental sciences. History NERC began in 1965 when several envir ...

, the

World Data System The World Data System (WDS) was created by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the predecessor to the International Science Council (ISC), at their 29th General Assembly in October 2008. The mission of the World Data System is to enha ...

, and the

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC/UNESCO) was established by resolution 2.31 adopted by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It first met in Paris at ...

References

External links

* Natural Environment Research Council Research institutes in Merseyside Sea level {{int-org-stub

See also

References

External links