Is There Evidence Yet of Acceleration in Mean Sea Level Rise around Mainland Australia?

Trends and acceleration in global and regional sea levels since 1807

“…Several studies White, 2006, 2011;Jevrejeva et al, 2008a;Woodworth et al, 2009;Olivieri and Spada, 2013) have found various different accelerations in global sea level reconstructions, suggesting that results are very dependent on the time period considered for analysis. In addition, results from individual tide gauges (Douglas, 1992;Watson, 2011;Woodworth et al, 2009) term estimates of time variable sea level acceleration in 203 year global reconstruction are significantly positive, which supports our previous finding (Jevrejeva et al, 2008a), that despite strong low frequency variability (larger than 60 years) the rate of sea level rise is increasing with time.…”

Nonlinear subsidence at Fremantle, a long‐recording tide gauge in the Southern Hemisphere

“…For example, the vertical stability of the Australian continent and its suitability as a datum for MSL observations has been debated for decades [e.g., Emery, 1986, 1988;Bryant et al, 1988;Amin, 1993;Belperio, 1993;Feng et al, 2004;Sandiford, 2007;Moucha et al, 2008;Watson, 2011;Lewis et al, 2012]. Hay et al [2015], Haigh et al [2014], Hogarth [2014], Holgate and Woodworth [2004], Jevrejeva et al [2014], Jorda [2014], Merrifield et al [2009], Olivieri and Spada [2013], Watson et al [2015], and Woodworth et al [2009Woodworth et al [ , 2011; those that claim deceleration include Boretti [2012], Boretti and Watson [2012], Parker et al [2013], and Watson [2011]; those that claim neither include Schr€ oter [2010, 2014].…”

How to improve estimates of real-time acceleration in the mean sea level signal

“…Of keen interest is whether there is a measurable acceleration in ocean water level records (e.g., Baart, Van Koningsveld, and Stive, 2011;Donoghue and Parkinson, 2011;Houston and Dean, 2011a;Houston and Dean, 2011b;Rahmstorf and Vermeer, 2011;Visser, Dangendorf, and Petersen, 2015;Watson, 2011], a feature central to projections based on the current knowledge of climate science (Stocker et al, 2013). In particular, the published works of Watson (2011) and Houston and Dean (2011a) generated extensive political, social and media debate around the issue.…”

“…Almost exclusively, estimates of acceleration in global or basin scale mean sea level studies have been derived from the ubiquitous simplicity afforded by doubling the quadratic coefficient after fitting a second order polynomial function (e.g., Church and White, 2006;2011;Douglas, 1992;1997;Hay et al, 2015;Houston and Dean, 2011a;Jevrejeva et al, 2006;2008;.…”