if Sea levels rise 10 feet. Would it be equal everywhere, or would some areas be affected more?
In: Planetary Science
The rise in sea level would be world wide.
Foe a sea level rise of one meter the Dutch would have to suspend the maintenance of the nation’s bike paths for a year to come up with the funding to raise the dikes.
The Miami Florida region would be totally screwed.
It will be roughly equal everywhere. All the oceans are connected so if the sea levels rise in one ocean more flows into the other oceans raising the sea levels there equally much.
There are actually some differences in sea level over the world. Gravity is not consistent as the density of the Earths crust varies and also the height of the crust. So the ocean does actually get attracted to the heavier parts of the crust making it technically higher in these areas. There are also some difference between east and west in each ocean as the winds tend to blow more from west to east as well as the tidal waves moves this way. And thirdly the evaporation rates are different in different areas of the ocean making the sea level lower in hotter areas as water is constantly flowing towards these areas. This is especially noticeable where you have a narrow straight connecting two oceans with different temperatures.
If sea levels rise 10 feet then most of these things will still stay the same so you would expect most places to get the same 10 feet of sea level rise. But the straights will get slightly wider and deeper allowing for even more water to flow through them. So places like the Mediterranean ocean will rise more then average. I am not sure if it would be a very measurable difference but there would technically be a difference.
The equator would have slightly more rise, and the poles would have slightly less rise in the ocean level.
That’s good news for all those coastal cities in the arctic and antarctic, right?
The rise would be roughly the same everywhere but the *impact* would be drastically different. A rise of 10 feet will result in water moving further inland in flatter areas than hillier ones. Many islands will simply cease to be while a place like the cliffs of dover won’t notice anything.
Areas near the coast would definitely be affected first.
In the US, cities like Miami and New Orleans ( amongst others) would be greatly affected while Denver would have less impact
Unequal. There would be more sea level rise closer to the equator. Because the world is a spinning sphere, there is more centrifugal force (from the spinning) at the equator and close to zero centrifugal force at the polls. The sea level rise would be mildly higher than the average at the equator and taper off as it goes away from the equator. Currently the sea level is 13 miles higher at the equator than the polls compared to what it would be if the Earth was not spinning.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6et6z0/til_there_is_a_sea_bulge_at_the_equator_of_the/](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/6et6z0/til_there_is_a_sea_bulge_at_the_equator_of_the/)
Think of a big bathtub, how when you move a little you get small changes on the surface like waves so at any given time the water is a little higher on one side, but lower on the other. There is the same amount of water overall. Those little waves you made is like the moon causing tidal changes.
Now imagine adding in a glass of water. The overall water level has gone up, by a little bit. Everything else acts the same as before.
**ELI5:** Imagine you’re pouring water into a big, uneven sandbox where some parts are higher and some parts are lower. If you add a lot of water, the whole sandbox will get wetter, but the lowest parts will fill up with water first and foremost. The Earth is a bit like that sandbox. If the sea level rises by 10 feet, not every place will see the water come up the same amount. Some places might get more flooded because they’re lower or because the way the land meets the sea makes the water come up higher.
**Adult Answer:**
Sea level rise is not uniform across the globe due to various factors such as gravitational effects, land elevation changes, and ocean currents. The Earth’s gravitational field, affected by the mass distribution of water and ice, causes sea levels to rise more in some areas than others. For example, as ice melts from glaciers and ice sheets, the reduced gravitational attraction allows water to distribute more evenly across the oceans, raising sea levels further away from the melting ice. Additionally, land subsidence or uplift can affect local sea levels, with some coastal areas experiencing higher relative sea levels due to sinking land. Ocean currents and regional temperature variations also contribute to uneven sea level rise, making the impact location-specific. Therefore, a 10-foot rise in global average sea level would result in varying local sea level changes around the world, with some regions affected more significantly.
Yes and no. Yes five foot is five foot regardless of where it is on the globe. But depending on the moon phase the tidal bulge may make it seem higher than it normally is simply because there’s more water to raise in that bulge.
The ELI5 answer is the water will be higher, and the high tide will also be higher. But the high tide may be higher than the amount of water added, because of the increased water.
It would be more or less the same everywhere, since 10 feet would be in excess of variation. But there will still be variation, because sea level rise will also come with differences in how water moves and distributes around the ocean, especially since the coastline itself is changing.
For example, if sea levels rise due to the Greenland ice sheet melting, then Greenland itself would rise because it’s no longer weighed down. So it would be less in Greenland, but this would be a very slow process; parts of North America are still rebounding today even 10,000 years after the last ice age. There’s also places more susceptible to erosion like Bangladesh, and places adjacent to the sea that are already below sea level; the sea topping these areas would add to the level by 10 feet PLUS the amount it’s already below sea level.
Of course, one could technically say that it’s not the sea level changing, but the land level changing. But one way that the sea level itself could locally change is through disruption of ocean currents. Sea level is locally higher in areas where currents run up against land. If a current gets stronger, the sea level will rise more; if it gets weaker, it will rise less. And obviously it would change if the paths themselves change.
Latest Answers