Sea Level Could Rise in South, Fall in North

Der Spiegel ^ | Dec. 2, 2010 | Gerald Traufetter

[PROCON]

Climate change is expected to cause sea levels to rise -- at least in some parts of the world. Elsewhere, the level of the ocean will actually fall. Scientists are trying to get a better picture of the complex phenomenon, which also depends on a host of natural factors.

When presented as a globe, the Earth looks as round and smooth as a billiard ball. To anyone standing on a beach, the ocean looks as flat as a pancake.

But perception is deceptive. "In reality, the water in the oceans wobbles all over the place," says oceanographer Detlef Stammer. He isn't talking about waves, but large-scale bulges and bumps in the sea level.

[PROCON]

Thanks for your input, FRiend!

[Tijeras_Slim]

Probably out of context but...

[stormer]

They aren’t talking about tides. The photo I posted was intended to illustrate that water levels can be high in one area and low in another at the same time. The issue in the comparison between the tropical Pacific and the cold waters off SF has to do with thermal expansion in warmer waters...

[DBrow]

Yano, this could be true. Just the other night I made a pile of water on the right side of my bathtub, about three inches high.

So it makes perfect sense for one part of, say, the Pacific, to stick up several feet over the other parts, or for there to be a hole in the water somewhere.

After all, AGW causes floods, droughts, rain, hurricanes, and lack of hurricanes.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

Might be out of context, but it was funny :-)

[Hot Tabasco]

If the Greenland ice sheet, which is 3 kilometers (1.88 miles) thick in some places, were to melt completely, sea levels would rise by 7 meters on average.

If my aunt had balls she woulda been my uncle..........

But I digress, if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, the global temperature of this planet would be so high that life as we know it would probably have died off long before Iceland melted into the sea.........

[tubebender]

But I was and it carries as much weight as the story

[cookcounty]

OF COURSE seas are rising in the south....it's simple PHYSICS.

There is something known as "ice age rebound" which is and has been occuring in near-arctic and near antarctic latitudes for many centuries. Old ports along the Finnish coast, for example, are in some cases now high and dry, a kilometer away from today's coastline. The compression caused by the overburden of ice during the ice-age is still "springing back." Finland's land area is literally GROWING by some 2-3 square mile per year, and this phenomenon is true across the northern lands. Which means land must be disappearing SOMEWHERE else.

If the sea recedes in one place, it MUST rise somewhere else, whether Global Warming is occuring or not...... the question is what aspect of sea-rise is due to this factor and what is due to GW, and how is it measured?

[PROCON]

Thanks for your input, I learn a lot here!..:=)

[antidemoncrat]

I may not be the smartest person around, but if all the oceans and major seas are interconnected, how could the levels vary other than local miniscule changes due to gravitational variations or tidal effects?

[PROCON]

Some very smart FReepers have already responded to some of your questions and I usually have the REAL scientific types respond in due course, stay tuned..:=)

[diverteach]

This is great news. Now I won’t have to worry a low tide will keep me from getting my sailboat in and out of the bayou.

[aruanan]

OF COURSE seas are rising in the south....it's simple PHYSICS. There is something known as "ice age rebound" which is and has been occuring in near-arctic and near antarctic latitudes for many centuries. Old ports along the Finnish coast, for example, are in some cases now high and dry, a kilometer away from today's coastline. The compression caused by the overburden of ice during the ice-age is still "springing back." Finland's land area is literally GROWING by some 2-3 square mile per year, and this phenomenon is true across the northern lands. Which means land must be disappearing SOMEWHERE else.

If the sea recedes in one place, it MUST rise somewhere else, whether Global Warming is occuring or not...... the question is what aspect of sea-rise is due to this factor and what is due to GW, and how is it measured?

Um hmm.

With ice-age rebound, the sea is not receding, the land is rising. With a constant sea level you can have land getting swallowed up by the sea due to subsidence; can have more land exposed due to rebound or other causes. This won't any discernible effect on the seas getting higher or lower elsewhere, if for no other reason than the total amount of coastline is so vast that the piddling amount lost or gained due to land rising or falling in one relatively small area is virtually undetectable. Besides, the sea level rise since the last ice age has pretty much come to a halt. There's been some thermal expansion during the last Pacific Decadal Oscillation positive phase between 1970 or so and 2000. And now we've entered the negative phase. There will be a decreasing sea level (not by a whole lot, though) over the next twenty or so years just because of lack of thermal expansion.

[SouthTexas]

The earth is out of balance again.

It’s probably because all of our money is now in China, thus causing a tilt in that direction.

We just need to go take it back. It’s not rocket science.

[PROCON]

Thanks FRiend for your input!

[dr_lew]

Of course, the tidal forces are gravitational as well, resulting from the variation in gravitational attraction over the surface of the earth.

Also of course, the movements of the oceans are a dynamical response to this time-variable force. The North Atlantic swirls, with the line of high tide sweeping like an arm from Spain, along Great Britain and the North Sea. The center of the swirl is an Amphidromic Point east of Newfoundland.

[dr_lew]

So it makes perfect sense for one part of, say, the Pacific, to stick up several feet over the other parts, or for there to be a hole in the water somewhere.

As the ironic sense is plain, and you are expressing disbelief in such things, I believe this is a good example of the rhetorical category of Argument from Ignorance.

I used to wonder about that term, since it was hard to imagine how you would make such an argument, but I have noticed that expressions of disbelief such as yours fall into this category. It's basically the reaction of "Who ever heard of such a thing!"

[DBrow]

Outside of tides and wind and current, I do indeed find it odd that part of an ocean can hump up in one place for any length of time. Even odder to think that the effect is caused by Global Warming.

What is Algor’s favorite island- the Maldives? The ocean has been humping up there for a while.

And NPR had a piece on one spot on the West African coast where the sea level was rising. But only there, apparently.

And yet I run across people who think that the Pacific is higher than the Atlantic, because you need locks to navigate the Panama Canal.

[Kimmers]

It takes a FReeper to explain it all.....thanks for the information

[DBrow]

http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/wpi.nsf/d8e8e1fa2caa33f98525669800660fe6/01a8885f5e0ca251852574eb0074cbcc/$FILE/Wunsch-10-16-08.pdf

This has slightly different charts.

People who look at Earth rotation rate show very little actual ocean rise, it’s all local due to, may I use an unscientific term, sloshing about of the water.