The moving boundaries of sea level change: Understanding the Origins of Geographic Variability

AIMED AT: Project development experts PURPOSE: Paper explores two effects of regional sea level change: ice sheets gain or loss, and water movements between the continents and oceans GEOGRAPHICAL AREA: World oceans TECHNICAL AREA: Regional sea level change; origins of climate variability BASIC STRUCTURE: While globally averaged sea level rise provides an important integrated measure of changes in the Earth system, regional sea level changes have a more direct impact on society and provide greater information for scientists interested in the response of the planet to climate change. The impact on regional sea level observations most commonly associated with Glacial Isostatic Adjusment(GIA) is the uplift, or post-glacial rebound, of the crust near the centers of the former ice sheets. In any effort to analyze present-day observations of sea level change, it is important to understand and estimate the contaminating influence of the ongoing responses of Earth’s land and ocean to the last ice age, or GIA. Most of the current focus in regard to the mass component of sea level changes concentrates on present-day contributors of water from the continents, specifically, mass loss from ice sheets and glaciers, changes in the hydrological cycle, impoundment of water behind dams, and others. Often, the impacts of these sources are reported in terms of global average sea level change calculated as the volume of water divided by the ocean’s area.

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