Evaluation on the effects of sea level during El Nino and La Nina events in Malaysian water

Abstract

Phenomenon on sea level rise has received a great concern from the Malaysian government and the community. Due to its location, Malaysia is vulnerable to sea level rise threat. MINITAB13 software was used to investigate the sea level rise phenomena using the least square regression method. Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) method generated from MINITAB13 was used to measure the accuracy of fitted time series values, for example the future sea level data. This was followed by null hypothesis test, test statistics-t, t-distribution and statistical significant test. Meanwhile, forecasting the future sea level using exponential smoothing approach as part of time series analysis technique was carried out. These analyses were performed on sea level data sets ranging from 1984 – 2007 from four stations across Malaysia. The regression analyses showed that the sea level was influenced by the 1997 El Nino and 1999 La Ninca events as well as the monsoon season. The impact from the warmth, coolness and the occurrence of monsoon season were significant with the increased or decreased of dissolved oxygen saturation in Kuala Sungai Johor. Thus, during the El Nino event in 1997 and 2004, saturated oxygen value in freshwater was low in Kuala Sungai Johor. However, the occurrences of pre-monsoon and northeast monsoon (in October and January) consequently had lowered the temperature, resulting in a higher value of saturated dissolved oxygen.