ANNOUNCEMENTS
Monitoring and understanding coastal sea level variability is a challenge because of the scant distribution of tide gauges, especially along the Indian coast. Satel- lite altimetry started measuring sea level since1993, but the reliability of the data measured closer to the coast was found to be less due to land perturbations. In this study,a coastal altimetry product, XTRACK, which provides SLA over 23 regions, is validated for the Indian region using eight tide gauges available. The annual variability and sea level trend for each station are also analysed over 2002-2020.
We found good agreement between altimetry and TGs near the coast of the Arabian Sea. For stations in the Bay of Bengal, only 2 TGs near the north are found to have a strong correlation. The disagreement between altimetry and TGs is mainly explained by the position of TGs, errors in the TG measurement and the geophysical corrections used in the XTRACK. Improving geophysical corrections can increase the accuracy of the altimetry products in measuring sea level close to the coast. An extensive TG network along the coast of India will also improve measuring and monitoring of coastal mean sea level.
Keywords: Coastal altimetry; XTRACK; Tide Gauge; Sea level anomaly; North Indian Ocean; Indian Coast.
