Solid Earth Science and Sea Level Change - COSEG Fall 2020 - Day 1
Channel: National Academies - Earth and Life Studies
Date: 2020-11-17

Sea level change is one of the most critical environmental and socioeconomic problems facing modern society. It is of paramount importance to predict how much sea level will rise in the future and how it will impact coastal populations and infrastructure. Sea level change involves complex interactions among the atmosphere, oceans, and the land surface; each component must be understood to assess not only how sea level is changing now, but how it will change in the future. The role of the solid Earth and land surface is a vital piece of the puzzle. Vertical land motion can exacerbate relative sea level change in areas of subsidence or buffer against sea level change in areas of uplift. The solid Earth is still deforming in response to mass changes from ice that melted thousands of years ago, as well as ice that is melting today. This deformation changes sea level through the vertical land motion it causes and its changes to the gravity field of the Earth, which causes “imprints” of the ice sheets in the spatial patterns of sea level change. Measurements of sea level change can therefore be used to infer properties of the solid Earth that drive this deformation.