Could old tide gauges help estimate  past atmospheric variability?

Platzer, Paul; Ailliot, Pierre; Chapron, Bertrand; Tandeo, Pierre

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2267-2024

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2267-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2267-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

Research article

|

10 Oct 2024

Research article |

| 10 Oct 2024

Could old tide gauges help estimate past atmospheric variability?

Paul Platzer, Pierre Ailliot, Bertrand Chapron, and Pierre Tandeo

Data sets

The International Surface Pressure Databank version 4 UCO/CIRES|DOC/NOAA/OAR/ESRL/PSL https://doi.org/10.5065/9EYR-TY90

Monthly Maps: Number of Observations per Day for International Surface Pressure Databank Version 4.7 UCO/CIRES|DOC/NOAA/OAR/ESRL/PSL https://web.archive.org/web/20230527064622/https://psl.noaa.gov/data/20CRv3_ISPD_obscounts_bymonth/

EMULATE (European and North Atlantic daily to MULtidecadal climATE variability) Philip D. Jones, et al. https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/projects/emulate/LANDSTATION_MSLP/

Weather Rescue Data Ed Hawkins https://github.com/ed-hawkins/weather-rescue-data/tree/main/

Short summary

Old observations are necessary to understand the atmosphere. When direct observations are not available, one can use indirect observations, such as tide gauges, which measure the sea level in port cities. The sea level rises when local air pressure decreases and when wind pushes water towards the coast. Several centuries-long tide gauge records are available. We show that these can be complementary to direct pressure observations for studying storms and anticyclones in the 19th century.