vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Sea Level Rise is Accelerating
“The TOPEX/Poseidon/Jason altimetry missions have been essentially providing the equivalent of a global network of nearly half a million accurate tide gauges, providing sea surface height information every 10 days for over 25 years,” said Brian Beckley of NASA Goddard. “As this climate data record approaches three decades, the fingerprints of Greenland and Antarctic land-based ice loss are now being revealed in the global and regional mean sea level estimates.”
Even with a 25-year data record, it can be challenging to detect acceleration. Episodes like volcanic eruptions can create variability; for instance, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 decreased global mean sea level just before the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite launch. In addition, global sea level can fluctuate due to climate patterns such as El Niño and La Niña, which influence ocean temperature and global precipitation patterns.
Nerem and the research team used climate models and other data sets to account for the volcanic effects and to determine the El Niño /La Niña effects, ultimately uncovering the underlying rate and acceleration of sea level rise. They also compared their results to tide gauges on Earth’s surface. “Tide gauge measurements are essential for determining the uncertainty in the global mean sea level acceleration estimate,” said co-author Gary Mitchum of the University of South Florida. “They provide the only assessments of the satellite instruments from the ground.”

In addition to making direct sea level observations from space, NASA has been conducting airborne and ship-based campaigns such as Operation IceBridge and Oceans Melting Greenland to gather measurements of ice sheets and glaciers. In 2018, NASA will launch two new satellite missions that will be critical to improving future sea level projections: the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, a partnership with GeoForschungsZentrum (Germany) and Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). 
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio images by Kel Elkins, using data from JASON-1, JASON-2, and TOPEX/Poseidon. Story by Katie Weeman, CIRES, and Patrick Lynch, NASA GSFC. Edited by Mike Carlowicz.
Collection - Sea Level Rise
Scientists project ice losses from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets will play a large part in sea level rise in the upcoming century.
Published Nov 5, 2020
 

Image of the Day
Unique Imagery
Snow and Ice
Remote Sensing

Image

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Gravimetry
Scientists measure ice’s gravitational pull on a pair of satellites, allowing them to estimate ice loss and its contribution to sea level rise.
Published Nov 5, 2020
 

Image of the Day
Unique Imagery
Snow and Ice
Remote Sensing

Image

California’s Rising and Sinking Coast
Millions of people in the state live in low-lying coastal areas where land subsidence is exacerbating the risks of sea level rise.
Published Oct 23, 2020
 

Image of the Day
Land
Remote Sensing

Image

Great Fox is Disappearing
Rising waters are swallowing up another island in Chesapeake Bay.
Published Dec 2, 2019
 

Image of the Day
Land
Life
Human Presence

Image

Snow over Antarctica Buffered Sea Level Rise
It snowed more, but the mass gained only compensates for some of the ice being lost in Antarctica.
Published Dec 26, 2018
 

Image of the Day
Land
Snow and Ice

Image

More Glaciers in East Antarctica Are Waking Up
Satellites detect changes in the height and velocity of ice in an area that was thought to be relatively stable and quiet.
Published Dec 11, 2018
 

Image of the Day
Heat
Land
Snow and Ice

Image

Sea Level Rise is Accelerating
The acceleration has been driven mainly by increased ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and it has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100.
Published Feb 20, 2018
 

Image of the Day
Water
Human Presence

Image

Eastern New Orleans
Known as the rural side of New Orleans, the landscape is largely marshes and bayous and old European names.
Published Jun 12, 2017
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water
Human Presence

Image

Water, Water Everywhere
The Maldives rise just a few meters above the surrounding ocean.
Published Jan 15, 2017
Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Ice Height
Sea level around the world has been rising for reasons both natural and human-caused. This series of articles explores how NASA and other science institutions measure and monitor these changes.

References & Resources

Brenner, A. et al. (2007) Precision and Accuracy of Satellite Radar and Laser Altimeter Data Over the Continental Ice Sheets. IEEE 45 (2), 321-331.
Smith, B. (2010) Ice sheet mass balance from remote sensing measurements.
Smith, B. et al. (2020) Pervasive ice sheet mass loss reflects competing ocean and atmosphere processes. 368 (6496), 1239-1242.
NASA About ICESat-2. Accessed November 4, 2020.
NASA (2020) Sea Level Change: Observations from Space. Accessed November 4, 2020.
NASA Earth Data (2020) Sea Level Change Data Pathfinder. Accessed November 4, 2020.
NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (2020, April 30) Land Ice Height Change Between ICESat and ICESat-2. Accessed November 4, 2020.

You might also be interested in    (view all)

Subscribe to our newsletters
 

Image

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Gravimetry
Scientists measure ice’s gravitational pull on a pair of satellites, allowing them to estimate ice loss and its contribution to sea level rise.

Image of the Day
Unique Imagery
Snow and Ice
Remote Sensing

Image

The Making of an Iceberg
The impending birth of a big, new iceberg from Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf will not have an immediate effect on sea level, but it could be an indicator of future problems.

Image of the Day
Snow and Ice
Sea and Lake Ice

Image

Watching the Rivers Flow on Greenland
A summer field campaign examines the hydrology of the water streaming across the top of the ice sheet.

Image of the Day
Water
Snow and Ice

Image

Astrolabe Glacier and Unbalanced Ice
Located in East Antarctica, Astrolabe Glacier streams out from the interior of Antarctica to dump ice into the sea. 

Image of the Day
Snow and Ice

Subscribe
Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Ice Height
Another effort called the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) combines data from 13 NASA and ESA missions to create mass change models. Scientists also use ice height in models of how ice sheets may change in the future, such as in the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project (ISMIP6) that brings together ice sheet modeling groups around the world.
Find more stories about our changing oceans and coasts in Earth Observatory’s sea level rise collection. Explore other stories of sea level by our NASA colleagues in Rising Waters.
Looking for data related to sea level rise? The Sea Level Change Data Pathfinder on NASA’s Earthdata site highlights tools used by researchers to study ice sheet altimetry, including ICESat Global Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheet Altimetry Data, ICESat-2 Land Ice Height, GRACE and GRACE-FO Greenland Ice Mass Anomalies, and Antarctic Ice Mass Anomalies.
Images by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Kel Elkins and NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens. Story by Kasha Patel, with scientific input from Thomas Neumann/NASA Goddard, Nathan Kurtz/NASA Goddard, Ben Smith/University of Washington, and Helen Fricker/University of California-San Diego.

Scientists project ice losses from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets will play a large part in sea level rise in the upcoming century.
Image of the Day for November 9, 2020

Instruments:
ICESat — GLAS
ICESat-2 — ATLAS
Map
Photograph

Appears in this Collection:
Sea Level Rise

Image of the Day
Unique Imagery
Snow and Ice
Remote Sensing

View more Images of the Day:

Nov 8, 2020

Nov 10, 2020

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise

Sea level around the world has been rising for reasons both natural and human-caused. This series of articles explores how NASA and other science institutions measure and monitor these changes.

References & Resources

Brenner, A. et al. (2007) Precision and Accuracy of Satellite Radar and Laser Altimeter Data Over the Continental Ice Sheets. IEEE 45 (2), 321-331.
Smith, B. (2010) Ice sheet mass balance from remote sensing measurements.
The Waters are Rising on NASA’s Shores
The combination of rising waters and sinking ground means the Hampton Roads area (Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach) could see 41 to 53 inches (104 to 135 centimeters) of relative sea level rise by the 2080s. That prospect has the leaders of both NASA Langley and the Langley Air Force Base planning to slowly move back from coastal flood zones. Scientists have surveyed the property with airborne lidar, and modelers have looked more closely at future projections for flood-prone areas. Old buildings are being hardened for tougher weather, and new buildings are being sited farther inland.

Johnson Space Center lies within some of the most notorious hurricane territory along the Gulf of Mexico coast. The primary NASA center for human spaceflight training and operations is particularly vulnerable to water hazards, including storm surges from hurricanes, flooding from extreme rainfall, and sea-level rise. While these hazards are not new to the Galveston Bay region, many climate change scenarios predict increases in the frequency and severity of such events in an area where sea level rise has been significant. Sea level has been rising nearly 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) per decade in Galveston Bay, significantly more than at any other NASA center.

August 2, 2015JPEG

Then there is NASA’s home in New Orleans. Michoud Assembly Facility includes one of the world’s largest manufacturing plants, a 43-acre building where Saturn rockets and space shuttle boosters were once assembled and where the new Space Launch System will be pieced together. Michoud stands below sea level and behind 19-foot-tall earthen levees, and the land beneath the facility is subsiding, a result of the draining and compression of Mississippi Delta swampland. According to a NASA internal study, sea level could rise 30 to 34 inches (76 to 86 centimeters) around Michoud, even under conservative estimates. That’s a much higher water line for Mother Nature to build upon when future hurricanes blow in.
Click here to read more of this story.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens and Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and sea level rise data from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and NOAA. Astronaut photograph ISS024-E-10403 provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment, Johnson Space Center.
Sea Level Rise is Accelerating
Image

Regional Patterns of Sea Level Change 1993-2007

Image of the Day
Water

Image

Discovering the Charlotte Whale
The unexpected discovery of a whale skeleton hundreds of miles from the sea and more than 200 feet above sea level in 1849 is a reminder of how much sea level can change.

Image of the Day
Land
Water
Human Presence
Snow and Ice

Subscribe
to our newsletters

Feeds
Contact
About
Image Use Policy
Privacy Policy
Accessibility

 Webmaster Paul Przyborski

 NASA Official Robert Levy

 The Earth Observatory is part of the EOS Project Science Office at NASA Goddard Space
 Flight Center
Collection - Sea Level Rise
Published Feb 20, 2018
 

Image of the Day
Water
Human Presence

Image

Eastern New Orleans
Known as the rural side of New Orleans, the landscape is largely marshes and bayous and old European names.
Published Jun 12, 2017
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water
Human Presence

Image

Water, Water Everywhere
The Maldives rise just a few meters above the surrounding ocean.
Published Jan 15, 2017
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water

Image

Scientists Improve Maps of Subsidence in New Orleans
Through a combination of airborne radar and ground-based GPS, a research team has developed detailed models of how much land is sinking and rising in southern Louisiana.
Published May 25, 2016
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water
Remote Sensing

Image

The Waters are Rising on NASA’s Shores
Global sea level rise poses very local challenges for the many NASA centers situated on U.S. coasts.
Published Sep 30, 2015
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water
Human Presence
Remote Sensing

Image

NASA’s Front Porch View of Rising Seas
The nation’s problem is also NASA’s problem: Half to two-thirds of our space infrastructure and assets stand within 5 meters of sea level.
Published Sep 8, 2015
 

Image of the Day
Water

Image

Watching the Rivers Flow on Greenland
A summer field campaign examines the hydrology of the water streaming across the top of the ice sheet.
Published Aug 30, 2015
 

Image of the Day
Water
Snow and Ice

Article

Sea Level Rise Hits Home at NASA
Sea level rise is not just an academic concern for NASA satellites and scientists. With two-thirds of its infrastructure and assets situated on the coast, the agency has first-hand experience with the effects of rising waters.
Published Aug 26, 2015
 

Land
Water
Human Presence

Image

Airborne Instruments Look for Changes in the Delta
Plane-mounted radar and other instruments are studying the shrinking and growing wetlands along the Gulf Coast.
Published Jun 25, 2015
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water

‹

1
NASA Visible Earth - Home
As water dropped to critically low levels, electricity production suffered and power outages plagued Zimbabwe and Zambia.
Related images:

720 x 480
 JPEG

1839 x 1226
 2 MB - JPEG

720 x 480
 JPEG

1839 x 1226
 2 MB - JPEG

720 x 480
 JPEG

1993 x 1329
 4 MB - JPEG

 JPEG

Lake Victoria’s Rising Waters

720 x 290
 PNG

Lake Victoria’s Rising Waters
Published June 10, 2021
Intense rains during the wet season for a second year in a row have caused trouble for riparian communities near Africa’s largest lake.
Related images:

720 x 480
 JPEG

3758 x 2634
 2 MB - JPEG

720 x 480
 JPEG

3758 x 2634
 2 MB - JPEG

 JPEG

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Ocean Altimetry

720 x 426
 JPEG

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Ocean Altimetry
Published November 5, 2020
The ocean is lumpy and sloshes around its basins for natural reasons. But it is also rising, slowly and steadily.
Related images:

720 x 480
 PNG

720 x 288
 PNG

 PNG

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Ocean Altimetry

720 x 288
 PNG

Taking a Measure of Sea Level Rise: Ocean Altimetry
Published November 5, 2020
The ocean is lumpy and sloshes around its basins for natural reasons. But it is also rising, slowly and steadily.
Related images:

720 x 426
 JPEG

720 x 480
 PNG

 PNG

Sea Level Rise is Accelerating

720 x 425
 PNG

Sea Level Rise is Accelerating
Published February 20, 2018
The acceleration has been driven mainly by increased ice melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and it has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100.
Related images:

5911 x 2956
 17 MB - PNG
The Waters are Rising on NASA’s Shores
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Kennedy Space Center crews piled up 90,000 cubic yards of sand to create a 1.2-mile-long dune. So far, it has provided protection against storm and wave inundation. In the longer run, Bray and colleagues are working on what they call a “managed retreat.” They are building up the shore defenses, while also earmarking land farther inland for additional launch infrastructure should the demand materialize.

July 25, 2015JPEG

The sea level concerns at Kennedy Space Center are the most visible, but the issue touches most NASA centers. Wallops Flight Facility, carved out of coastal marshland on the eastern shore of Virginia, is most like Kennedy in its vulnerability.
In the past 15 years, Wallops has been redeveloped for launching NASA and commercial rockets, with at least $1 billion in new spaceflight infrastructure being set up along Atlantic shores. But the facility sits amidst a barrier beach system, and those sand bars want to move. Erosion and beach migration have been reshaping the surrounding barrier islands. Assateague has been losing 10 to 22 feet (3 to 7 meters) of beach per year; Wallops Island has been losing about 12 feet.

July 25, 2015JPEG

Situated near the third largest seaport in the United States and the nation’s largest naval base (Naval Station Norfolk), NASA’s Langley Research Center has to fight both rising seas and sinking land. Scientists have found that sea level around the Chesapeake Bay has been rising at 0.13 inches (3.4 millimeters) per year, twice the global average of 0.07 inches (1.7 mm) per year. Studies have shown that the landforms around the Chesapeake are sinking as a result of processes that started during the last Ice Age.
The combination of rising waters and sinking ground means the Hampton Roads area (Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach) could see 41 to 53 inches (104 to 135 centimeters) of relative sea level rise by the 2080s. That prospect has the leaders of both NASA Langley and the Langley Air Force Base planning to slowly move back from coastal flood zones. Scientists have surveyed the property with airborne lidar, and modelers have looked more closely at future projections for flood-prone areas.
October | 2014 | Terra
This latest study is the first to test the idea using satellite observations, as well as direct temperature measurements of the upper ocean. Scientists have been taking the temperature of the top half of the ocean directly since 2005, using a network of 3,000 floating temperature probes called the Argo array.
“The deep parts of the ocean are harder to measure,” said JPL’s William Llovel, lead author of the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. “The combination of satellite and direct temperature data gives us a glimpse of how much sea level rise is due to deep warming. The answer is — not much.”
The study took advantage of the fact that water expands as it gets warmer. The sea level is rising because of this expansion and the water added by glacier and ice sheet melt.
To arrive at their conclusion, the JPL scientists did a straightforward subtraction calculation, using data for 2005-2013 from the Argo buoys, NASA’s Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites, and the agency’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites. From the total amount of sea level rise, they subtracted the amount of rise from the expansion in the upper ocean, and the amount of rise that came from added meltwater. The remainder represented the amount of sea level rise caused by warming in the deep ocean.
The remainder was essentially zero. Deep ocean warming contributed virtually nothing to sea level rise during this period.
Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up. Some recent studies reporting deep-ocean warming were, in fact, referring to the warming in the upper half of the ocean but below the topmost layer, which ends about 0.4 mile (700 meters) down.
Landerer also is a coauthor of another paper in the same journal issue on 1970-2005 ocean warming in the Southern Hemisphere. Before Argo floats were deployed, temperature measurements in the Southern Ocean were spotty, at best.
The Waters are Rising on NASA’s Shores
Conservative climate models project that the seas off Kennedy will rise 5 to 8 inches by the 2050s, and 9 to 15 inches by the 2080s. If the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continue to melt as quickly as current measurements indicate, those numbers could become 21 to 24 inches by the 2050s and 43 to 49 inches by the 2080s.
“We consider sea-level rise and climate change to be urgent,” said Nancy Bray, spaceport integration and services director for Kennedy.
Based on historical records and aerial photos, the beach in front of Kennedy has thinned and moved inland by as much as 200 feet (60 meters) since the 1940s. The losses have been most acute and persistent along a stretch near the center’s two most prized launch pads, Complex 39A and 39B. The Atlantic Ocean stands less than a quarter mile from both.
In response to the persistent storm damage, Kennedy facilities managers enlisted Jaeger and his University of Florida colleague Pete Adams to figure out why sand dunes near Complexes 39A and B are so persistently being washed away. For five years, Jaeger, Adams, and graduate students pulled GPS mapping gear up and down 6 miles of beach at least once a month—more often in the wake of storms. They found that the beaches were retreating due to the shape of the seafloor just offshore, where gaps between the sandbars channel wave energy toward certain areas. But they also found sand piling up (accreting) in other areas, mostly near Launch Complex 41. The beach is migrating south, even if NASA’s infrastructure is not.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Kennedy Space Center crews piled up 90,000 cubic yards of sand to create a 1.2-mile-long dune. So far, it has provided protection against storm and wave inundation. In the longer run, Bray and colleagues are working on what they call a “managed retreat.” They are building up the shore defenses, while also earmarking land farther inland for additional launch infrastructure should the demand materialize.

July 25, 2015JPEG

The sea level concerns at Kennedy Space Center are the most visible, but the issue touches most NASA centers.
Collection - Sea Level Rise
With two-thirds of its infrastructure and assets situated on the coast, the agency has first-hand experience with the effects of rising waters.
Published Aug 26, 2015
 

Land
Water
Human Presence

Image

Airborne Instruments Look for Changes in the Delta
Plane-mounted radar and other instruments are studying the shrinking and growing wetlands along the Gulf Coast.
Published Jun 25, 2015
 

Image of the Day
Land
Water

‹

1
2

›

Subscribe To Our Newsletters
Receive notifications of our most recent images!
to our newsletters

Feeds
Contact
About
Image Use Policy
Privacy Policy
Accessibility

 Webmaster Paul Przyborski

 NASA Official Robert Levy

 The Earth Observatory is part of the EOS Project Science Office at NASA Goddard Space
 Flight Center