TOPEX measurements of sea level variability have been compared to tide gauge measurements from 40 sites and to dynamic topography measurements computed from temperatures recorded at 23 Tropical Ocean-Global Atmosphere (TOGA)-Tropical Atmosphere-Ocean (TAO) buoys in the eastern Pacific and mean temperature-salinity profiles. Buoy data in the western Pacific were not used because of large long-term slopes in the data that appear to be due to interannual salinity variations. The relative drift between TOPEX and the two different in situ sets of data agree within 1 mm yr-1, with a weighted average of -2.6 mm yr-1 and an estimated uncertainty of 1.5 mm yr-1, if values from an internal calibration of the TOPEX altimeter are applied. The consistency of the two relative drifts suggests that the slope is due at least in part to a drift in the TOPEX measurement. A substantial portion of this drift may be due to a drift in the TOPEX microwave radiometer (TMR), since comparisons with three independent external measurements indicate a drift in sea level due to the TMR measurement of about -2 mm yr-1. ¿ 1998 American Geophysical Union