An investigation of the frequencydistributions of annual sea level maxima at ports around Great Britain

Observed sea level maxima in the form of annual extremes have been analysedfor 67 ports around the British Isles. The ports give a coverage of all principal estuarine and open coast regions. The average number of annual maxima per port is 45, ranging from a minimum number of 10 to a maximum of over 130. The data are analysed by a standard method of extreme value analysis. It is shown that for certain ports the frequency distributions of the maxima are time dependent; this time dependency is most pronounced in estuarine regions. The results show the local and regional distribution of frequency statistics and the relative magnitude of their variation through time. The limitations of using annual sea level maxima as a basis for computing frequency statistics are examined.