Earth Equity News

Sea Level Rise Will Vary Greatly by Region. By Michael M. Lemonick, YaleEnviro360, March 22, 2010. "Sea level, according to the best current projections, could rise by about a meter by 2100, in large part due to melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. But that figure, too, is just a global average. In some places -- Scotland, Iceland, and Alaska for example -- it could be significantly less in the centuries to come. In others, like much of the eastern United States, it could be significantly more. And among the most powerful influences on regional sea level is a surprising force: the massive polar ice sheets and their gravitational pull, which will lessen as the ice caps melt and shrink, with profoundly different effects on sea level in various parts of the globe. If the idea of local differences in sea level comes as a surprise, it's probably because the experts themselves are only now beginning to fully realize what might cause such differences, and how significant they might be. One factor, which they've have been aware of for decades, is that the land is actually rising in some places, including northern Canada and Scandinavia, which are still recovering from the crushing weight of the Ice Age glaciers that melted 10,000 years ago. That makes sea-level increases less than the global average would suggest, since these land areas are rising a few millimeters a year."