The linked article gives an insight into the accuracy of the state of the art satellite sea-level measurements. You will see that they are not as accurate as you might think as you read through to the end. Here is the link:
Sentinel-6: New International Sea Level Satellite - Watts Up With That?
The very last points are set out below and need to be emphasized.
5. The ONLY sea level, or its rise or fall, of any importance to any locality or its governmental bodies is Local Relative Sea Level. This sea level rise (or fall) caused by rising absolute sea level rise combined with vertical land movement (in most instances, downward) determines the magnitude of any risk or threat from sea level rise for that location.
6. Many localities which have valuable infrastructure built on land only a few inches or feet above existing mean sea level for their location are already at risk of flooding by spring tides and storm surge and need to initiate changes in building codes and begin mitigation immediately. The sea will continue to rise, ever so slowly.
So far there is no evidence of any change in the long term gradual rise in sea level here in the UK which is set at around 7 or 8 inches per century (16 to 19 cms)
I have covered this subject before and new readers can read it here:
climate science: WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW ABOUT SEA LEVEL RISE?
Another good article covering world sea level rise can be seen here:
I find this "fear" of sea level rise quite unbelieve-able !! We are a "ball" in space covered by 2/3rds of water. Where is all this water going to come from? We know new islands poke up in the sea from time to time and presumably they affect the sea level across the globe and water moves with tides affecting sea level ! BUT WHAT ELSE is there?
ReplyDeleteHi Polling Day, the fear is that if some of the ice that is presently on land, such as Antarctica or Greenland, were to melt this would raise the volume of water in the oceans and hence sea level could rise. There is no evidence, so far, that this is happening. I should add that ice is continually melting, but this is replaced by fresh snow each year keeping things in balance. You are also quite right that extreme tides are a much greater immediate problem associated with hurricanes.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#/media/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
ReplyDeleteCO2 increase in the atmosphere is strongly associated with sea level rise. CO2 up, temperature up, sea level rise up.
There has been a slow steady rise of about 7 inches a century for the past 150 years and so far no sign of any change, though there are places where the land is subsiding, but that has nothing to do with climate change or global warming.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#/media/File:Sea_level_history_and_projections.svg
ReplyDeleteSea level will rise even in the best of projections of co2 emissions of the future.