Sea level will rise a foot higher on New Jersey coast by 2050

[Barrett808]

Sea level likely will be a foot higher along New Jersey by 2050, and at the end of the century “Atlantic City’s going to see three feet,” said geology professor Ken Miller of Rutgers University. ...

“It’s not that they’re disappearing — they’re moving,” said Norbert Psuty, professor emeritus at Rutgers, displaying aerial photographs that show the wild beaches shifting hundreds of feet westward.

“Island Beach is in the process of breaking down and being transported inland,” Psuty said at a Wednesday conference on climate change and coastal hazards. At the southern tip of Long Beach Island, the refuge beach now lines up with the middle of Holgate’s street grid.

“What we’re seeing today is unprecedented” — a regional sea level rise rate of 4 millimeters per year after millennia during which sea level was stable or rising by perhaps 1 millimeter a year, Miller said. He studies the shifting coastline with core samples that drill down through tens of thousands of years of sediment. ...

Sea level will rise a foot higher on New Jersey coast by 2050

[madokie]

1. I thought water seeks its on level

so what the fuck is the deal?

[Tripod]

I'm glad I have a boat.

[madokie]

3. I'm glad I've got better sense

Than to believe what was posted. If the ocean comes up one foot at one place it'll come up one foot everywhere or I've been lied to my whole life about water seeking its own level. In fact if you really want to be assured that something is exactly level you use whats called a water level as there is no room for error as there is with anything else.

[petronius]

4. When people talk about sea level rise in the local context, they generally mean

relative to fixed points on land. Since coasts themselves are moving vertically, it's possible to have local sea level rise in some places and sea level fall in others.

Also, relative to the ellipsoid, sea level around the world isn't at a constant level due to Earth's rotation and variations in wind stress, temperature, and gravity. So even at that scale, sea level rise wouldn't be expected to occur at an equal rate everywhere...

[madokie]

5. I think you missed my point.

[petronius]

6. I'm afraid so - perhaps you were being sarcastic?

:shrug:

[madokie]

13. Not sarcastic, just wrong. My bad

see post 11 and 12

Peace.

[kristopher]

7. What petronius wrote is accurate.

The water level analogy is good, but it doesn't really capture what is going on with the oceans. As stated, the land itself is rising and falling, and the action of the oceans are more like what happens when you are moving in a bathtub than what you see with a water level. They actually slosh back and forth independently of tides, for example. The biggest influences of the liquid motion are the moon (it goes beyond tides) and the spinning of the Earth.

[madokie]

8. I understand all of that I'm just saying that overall the ocean would come up

the same amount everywhere. I know that the world isn't round and that we have tides and all that but my point is the water would come up the same, wouldn't it? I'm not being obtuse on purpose I'm just saying that water seeks its own level. Maybe its we're just on different pages I don't know.
Either way Peace and have a great weekend. :hi:

[kristopher]

9. It's something most of us never think about.

I didn't until I took a physical oceanography class. It is also relatively new information, I believe, since we have only had the ability to measure the differences accurately since we started using satellite technology to monitor the oceans.

One thing to remember is that when water is settling at its own level it is still and calm. The oceans are full of energy supplied by the suns heat, the earth's rotation and gravity from (mostly) the moon. It goes around curves in land surfaces like a brook goes around a stone.

[petronius]

10. That's the surprising thing - it won't come up the same everywhere

The biggest factor is unequal change in ocean temperature, causing sea surface height to rise a bit more in areas of more warming. But, changes in wind stress, salinity, and maybe other factors also contribute. So, even leaving out the land masses and the issue of relative sea level, there is/will be spatial variability.

Here's a neat map (and site) showing the regional trends: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/map-sea-level-trends

You're right that there is a global mean sea level - one number that rises (or falls) as total water volume changes, but changes in that global number are the sum of all the regional variations in SSH...

Hope your weekend is going well, too! :hi:

[Geostudent]

11. Some fun reading!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoid
Understanding the concept of the Geoid could maybe help everyone on the subject. Its pretty cool stuff and germane to this whole subthread.

[madokie]

12. Thank you and welcome to DU

I've learned something today, thanks for that lesson.
I hope you hang in here with us :hi:

[Tripod]

2. I'm glad I have a boat.

[Nihil]

14. The sooner the better.

Maybe *that* will wake some people up ...