Every year the impact of king tides in Nauru seems to be getting bigger. To investigate sea level variations, an analysis was done on the past 20 years of tide gauge data to determine if there were any trends in high sea level events. Being so close to the equator, Nauru does not experience tropical cyclones, although it is subject to strong wind, swells and king tide. King tides occur most of the time during late month of every year and mostly affect the northern/western side of the island. Swells occur when gusts of wind speed reach 05 knots - 15 knots. A tide gauge installed by the Pacific Sea Level Monitoring project is used to measure sea level at Nauru.Based on the analysis, over the last 20-years, there is not much change for the maximum sea level. However the Monthly Data Report from PSLM for May 2014 states that the average sea level at Nauru has risen 5.2mm per year since tide measurements began which is larger than the global average of 2.8 mm-3.6mm per year. This higher rate of rise may be related to natural changeability that takes place year to year or decade to decade.

Another analysis for the same 20 years that analysed the top 100 hours of data each year for sea level events that passed more than 2.5 meters. The results showed a significant trend with an increase of approximately 2 additional hours of high sea level per year with a 95% confidence interval.