Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets

Some studies on deglaciation-induced sea-level change provide only a global average change, thus neglecting the fact that sea-level change is spatially variable. This is due mainly to the gravitational and visco-elastic feedback effects of the changing surface mass loads. In order to redress this...

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Main Authors: Kuhn, Michael, Featherstone, Will, Makarynskyy, Oleg, Keller, W.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Multi-Science Publishing 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/35151
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author Kuhn, Michael
Featherstone, Will
Makarynskyy, Oleg
Keller, W.
author_facet Kuhn, Michael
Featherstone, Will
Makarynskyy, Oleg
Keller, W.
author_sort Kuhn, Michael
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Some studies on deglaciation-induced sea-level change provide only a global average change, thus neglecting the fact that sea-level change is spatially variable. This is due mainly to the gravitational and visco-elastic feedback effects of the changing surface mass loads. In order to redress this apparent misconception and raise further awareness, we provide a conceptual example based on a simulated total melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. This would give a global average sea-level change of about 64 m. However, due to the changed distribution of gravitating masses, the sea-level change depends on location, with a range of about -27 m to +79 m (i.e., sea-level will even fall in some places). This spatial dependency has several implications in the case of a total melt, such as >10% biases in global average sea-level change estimates based only on tide-gauge records, flooding of almost 10% of current land areas, an increase of the length of day by almost a half a second and a northward move of the centre of mass (geocentre) by about 20 m.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-351512017-01-30T13:48:01Z Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets Kuhn, Michael Featherstone, Will Makarynskyy, Oleg Keller, W. flooding sea-level mass centre simulated melting length of day conceptual example ice sheet Some studies on deglaciation-induced sea-level change provide only a global average change, thus neglecting the fact that sea-level change is spatially variable. This is due mainly to the gravitational and visco-elastic feedback effects of the changing surface mass loads. In order to redress this apparent misconception and raise further awareness, we provide a conceptual example based on a simulated total melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. This would give a global average sea-level change of about 64 m. However, due to the changed distribution of gravitating masses, the sea-level change depends on location, with a range of about -27 m to +79 m (i.e., sea-level will even fall in some places). This spatial dependency has several implications in the case of a total melt, such as >10% biases in global average sea-level change estimates based only on tide-gauge records, flooding of almost 10% of current land areas, an increase of the length of day by almost a half a second and a northward move of the centre of mass (geocentre) by about 20 m. 2010 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/35151 Multi-Science Publishing fulltext
spellingShingle flooding
sea-level
mass centre
simulated melting
length of day
conceptual example
ice sheet
Kuhn, Michael
Featherstone, Will
Makarynskyy, Oleg
Keller, W.
Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
title Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
title_full Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
title_fullStr Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
title_full_unstemmed Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
title_short Deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
title_sort deglaciation-induced spatially variable sea level change: a simple-model case study for the greenland and antarctic ice sheets
topic flooding
sea-level
mass centre
simulated melting
length of day
conceptual example
ice sheet
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/35151