Summary

Description

The Joint Archive for Sea Level (JASL), a collaboration between the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center and the National Oceanographic Data Center (NOAA/NESDIS/NODC) continues to acquire, quality control, manage, and distribute sea level data as initiated by the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere Program, which ended in 1994. The JASL is a Global Sea Level Observing System archive center and is the largest global collection of quality-controlled hourly sea level. The JASL receives hourly data from regional and national sea level networks. The data are inspected and obvious errors such as data spikes and time shifts are corrected. Gaps less than 25 hours are interpolated. Reference level problems are referred back to the originator. If the originators can not resolve the reference level shift,comparisons with neighboring sites or examination of the hourly residuals may warrant an adjustment. Descriptive station information and quality assessments are prepared. The objective is to assemble a scientifically valid, well-documented archive of hourly and daily sea level values in standardized formats. These data are quasi-annually submitted to the World Data Center-SS for Oceanography via NODC, the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, and the British Oceanographic Data Centre. This set contains the complete holdings of the JASL for series that have been quality controlled, assessed, and documented. As of November 2013, the holdings consisted of 670 series with 15,657 station-years of quality-assured data. The series are of variable lengths with the greatest concentration between 5 and 30 years, although a few sites have over 70 years.