Reconstructed Global Sea Level Anomalies from 1950 to 2009

A 60-year reconstructed record of sea level anomalies combines satellite altimetry's near-global coverage with tide gauges' historical depth. The dataset, created by NASA ROSES Project, uses cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions (CSEOFs) to merge these sources. It provides weekly temporal resolution and half-degree spatial resolution from 1950 through 2009.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term global sea level trends based on the 60-year reconstructed time series.
• Analyzing regional sea level variability based on the half-degree spatial resolution.
• Validating climate model projections against historical observations from 1950-2009.
• Studying the complementarity of satellite and in-situ data sources for ocean monitoring.

Strengths

• Combines two key data sources to provide a 60-year record (1950-2009) with both historical depth and spatial coverage.
• Offers weekly temporal resolution and half-degree spatial resolution.
• Uses a specific reconstruction technique (CSEOFs) detailed in peer-reviewed literature (Hamlington et al. 2011).

Limitations

• Data ends in 2009; freshness for contemporary climate studies is unverified.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The specific algorithm and potential biases require expert understanding of the cited methodology.

Provenance

Source

NASA ROSES Project, hosted on aws_open_data.

Collection Method

Sea level reconstruction combining satellite altimetry and historical tide gauge measurements using CSEOFs.

Time Range

1950 to 2009

Freshness

Last updated date is unknown; data coverage ends in 2009.

Geography

Near-global coverage