D. Pugh
Chairman of IOC GLOSS Group of Experts
United Kingdom

The IOC sea level network, GLOSS, forms the Global framework to which local and regional sea level measurements can be related. The GLOSS Group of Experts has always emphasised the importance of developing strong regional networks as the basis for regional studies of coastal impacts and ocean variability.

The participant in the GLOSS Workshop held in São Paulo, Brazil in February 1993, were contributing to a GLOSS experiment. Although we have organised several successful courses in the techniques of sea level measurement, this was our first Workshop on analysis and application of sea level changes. By all accounts this experiment was a success, and points the way to future Workshops in other regions.

But regional interaction cannot be limited to meeting at Workshops. Between times, there is a need for sea level experts to stay in touch, to exchange news and experience, as well as data. This initiative, to produce a regular newsletter for the regions represented at the São Paulo Workshop, is an exiting way to fill the gaps. I congratulate Professor Mesquita, the first editor, and all the Workshop participants who helped in the planning. Beyond this first issue, the success of the newsletter will depend on all of the readers contributing items: news, sea level events, conferences, an interesting analysis or application. I look forward to reading about these in the future pages of the Afro America GLOSS News.

While in Brazil I was fortunate to be invited to visit the Hydrographic Directory in Rio de Janeiro, and to see the excellent sea level measuring facilities which the Brazilian Navy operates there. Later in the year I also visited Argentina and Chile. In Argentina I saw gauges at Puerto Madryn and old sites at Piramides and Punta Delgada on the Valdez Peninsula; I was also honored to be invited to give a lecture on the Tides of the Argentine Shelf and Climate Change, to the Oceanographic Conference. In Chile I saw gauges in Valparaiso, and at Corral. In Corral, a small coastal village in the South of Chile, there is a mark some 10 m above sea level showing the level to which the area was flooded by the tsunami following the 1960 great earthquake which had its epicentre offshore.

The level of the sea cannot be taken for granted; we need to measure, study and understand how and why it changes. GLOSS is designed to help these studies. And this Newsletter is designed to develop the regional interaction, which is such an important component of GLOSS.