Sea-Level Changes

The base level for determining height and depth on Earth is the sea level. As a result, sea-level changes are a climate change event in which the volume of ocean water increases or decreases, primarily due to ice sheets and glaciers melting and water thermal expansion, or vice versa. Coastal life worldwide is threatened as a result of sea-level rise, and adaptation policies must be formed to prevent further and faster catastrophic impacts. As the climate changes, the sea level rises. Due to local factors such as ground settling, upstream flood management, erosion, regional ocean currents, and if the land is still rebounding from the crushing weight of ice age glaciers, past and future sea-level rise at specific sites on land may be more or less than the average of the world.

Mechanisms of Sea-level Change

There are three types of mechanisms for sea-level change. They are as follows:

1. Eustatic sea-level changes

• Changes in the number of glaciers on land or fluctuations in the form of the seafloor incited by plate tectonic methods are both examples of eustatic sea-level changes. Changes in the pace of mid-ocean spreading, for example, will alter the form of the sea bottom along the ridges, affecting sea level.
• The volume of Earth’s oceans is called eustatic sea level. This is not a physical level; rather, it depicts the sea level if all of the ocean’s water was collected in a single basin. Because sea level is affected by various processes such as tectonics, continental rise, and subsidence, sea level is not related to local surfaces. 
• The ‘bathtub technique,’ which depicts the ocean as a single bathtub, is used to calculate eustatic sea level. Water can be added or removed, and the world’s oceans will gain or lose water on a global scale. 

2. Isostatic sea-level changes

• Isostatic sea-level changes are small variations in the sea level by crustal subsidence or uplift caused by changes in the quantity of ice on the ground or mountain growth or erosion.
• A variation in the land level causes a sea-level isostatic shift. When the land’s height rises, the sea level lowers, and when the land’s height falls, the sea level rises. Isostatic change is a change in local sea level, whereas eustatic change is global sea level.
•  Isostatic rebound happens very slowly, and it’s still happening today, thousands of years after the last ice age.
• Tectonic elevation or depression can also induce sea-level isostatic change. This type of isostatic alteration occurs only along plate borders. Therefore, it only occurs in particular parts of the planet. 

3. Tectonic sea-level changes:

• Tectonic action causes the land to rise or sink at a certain spot. This could be due to massive land movement. Large earthquakes, for example, can induce uplift of many metres. 
• More passive tectonic processes can also cause land uplift and sinking. For example, uplift is still occurring where ice sheets were in the last ice age. The land sank further into the mantle due to the weight of the ice. The weight of the continental crust was lowered when the ice melted, making it more buoyant.

Causes of Sea-level Change

1. Thermal Expansion 

When temperature rises, water expands, causing oceans to take up more space and the sea level to rise. 

2. Global Warming 

The melting of Greenland’s and West Antarctica’s ice sheets has increased global warming. Freshwater seepage from the surface harms this process because it acts as a lubricant for the ice streams, sliding quicker. That is, fresh filtered water is pumped to the base of the ice sheets, which causes the ice sheets to melt, weaken, and drop into the sea, which results in the rise of the sea level. 

Glaciers and ice caps are large ice structures that melt and do not return to their former shape. These gigantic frozen formations frequently partially decomposed throughout the summer, but they returned to their solid structure when winter temperatures came. Because of global warming, snowfall is softer, winters are later, and springs are earlier, resulting in ice that does not recombine in the same manner or quantity. 

3. Seasonal Change

The annual warming/cooling cycle – in each hemisphere, the seas warm and expand in the summer, then cool and constrict in the winter is a significant cause of the intra-annual rise in sea level. As a result, sea levels are higher in the summer and early autumn in each hemisphere and lower in the winter and early spring. In addition, during the Northern Hemisphere winter, there is an increase in water stored on land and thus less in the ocean, resulting in a lower world average sea level at this moment of the year. 

Conclusion

Sea-level change is a vital sign of global warming. In the twentieth century, sea level rose at a pace of up to 0.06 m each decade. Every decade since the 1950s has seen an increase in the rate of sea-level rise. According to model experiments, natural processes alone cannot explain the rise in sea level in the twentieth century. The primary cause of modern sea-level change is artificial forcing by greenhouse gases. The geological history of the past three glacial-interglacial cycles demonstrates that atmospheric CO2 concentrations and sea level have a strong positive relationship.