Evaluation of Sea Level Change in Antalya Station II

Antalya, Turkey, coasts are very sensitive to external dynamics so there is a need to explain the sea level change process on the shores of Antalya more closely. In line with this purpose, the sea level change on the Antalya coast has been examined and evaluated monthly and annually with a statistical and analytical approach in this study. Accordingly, the correlations of some indexes such as Southern Oscillation (SOI), Arctic Oscillation (AO), Antarctic Oscillation (AAO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), El Nino Southern Oscillation (NINO 3.4), and the parameters of arctic ice melt, Antalya air temperature, global air temperature, global ocean temperature, Mediterranean Sea surface temperature (SST) with the sea level change at Antalya Station II were examined to clarify the problem. The correlation study with the indexes revealed that there is no significant relationship between the indexes and the sea level change at Antalya Station II. Among the studied variables, the arctic ice melt, and the Antalya air temperature have relatively high correlation coefficients of 0.6959 and 0.6412 respectively in the monthly analysis. The Mediterranean SST seems to have the highest correlation with the sea level change with a correlation value of 0.93 in the annual analysis. Accordingly, analytical research was carried out to examine the correlation of the change of the sea level with the parameters that are thought to be the cause. Three effective parameters are identified and examined as the cause of sea level change observed at Antalya Station II, which are Mediterranean Sea temperature, ice melt, and other factors such as erosion. The result of this analytical study shows that the contribution to sea level change at Antalya Station II is mostly related to the temperature increase with a contribution of 82%, to ice melt with a contribution of 14%, and the other factors such as erosion with a contribution of 4%.