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| Fig. 1 Sea Level Zones |
Well Pilgrims, I found another database source (Woohoo ain't we got fun).
Since my worry about SLC destroying the sea ports of the world is growing, I delved into tide-gauge databases.
If you want to, you can blame Professor Dr. Jerry X. Mitrovica and his student Natayla Gomez, who is now also a professor.
But, if you are real, you won't blame them, instead, you will send them a thank-you card.
They got game.
II. The New Data
Anyway, I downloaded data from Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL), a very reputable source:
Established in 1933, the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) has been responsible for the collection, publication, analysis and interpretation of sea level data from the global network of tide gauges. It is based in Liverpool at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), which is a component of the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).(About PSMSL). That download is only the beginning of it, not the end of it, because then comes the software design and coding to handle it.
III. New Programs
Next I wrote C++ programs that parsed all of that flat-file structure-format data, so as to automatically put it into an SQL database (mySQL) as per usual.
I named the database "PSMSL" in honor of the hosts of the data.
Currently, there are three tables, "rlrdata", "stations", and "test".
The "stations" table has all the relevant tide-gauge data from around the world.
There are 1,417 tide-gauge station descriptions from around the globe.
Two of the columns or fields in the stations table are "latitude" and "longitude."
Those two allow the software to 1) identify each station as being within a zone, and 2) identify an ice sheet source as an impactor on that zone.
Thus, when relevant SLC (whether SLF or SLR) takes place in that zone, I can look to the source ice sheet to find out if there were visible dynamics such as calving (The Evolution of Models - 12) or melt.
The GRACE satellite detects either one of those phenomena, because loss of ice to melt or to calving means loss of gravity where the loss took place.
IV. SLC Fingerprint Zones
As you can see in Fig. 1, there are various coastal locations on the globe that are impacted characteristically when land ice in Greenland, Antarctica, and/or non-Polar glacial zones, individually and/or collectively, makes its way to the sea.
The link @ Fig. 1 is to a paper by Mitrovica, Gomez et al. which details the science of the issues.
V. Conclusion
Have a good labor day next year.
Will share more about all of this in the days ahead.
The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.
Future Rock Bands ...
Great job, Dredd! i look forward to seeing the finished product.
ReplyDeleteTom
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2015/09/nasa-zeroes-in-on-ocean-rise-its-pretty.html
ReplyDeleteNASA zeroes in on ocean rise – ‘It’s pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more’
Seas around the world have risen an average of nearly 3 inches (8 centimeters) since 1992, with some locations rising more than 9 inches (25 centimeters) due to natural variation, according to the latest satellite measurements from NASA and its partners. An intensive research effort now underway, aided by NASA observations and analysis, points to an unavoidable rise of several feet in the future.
Members of NASA's new interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team will discuss recent findings and new agency research efforts during a media teleconference today at 9:30 a.m. PDT (12:30 p.m. EDT). NASA will stream the teleconference live online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio
The question scientists are grappling with is how quickly will seas rise?
[Maybe they better get a clue first, eh? 'Natural variation' my ass. Try gravity.]
Tom
Tom,
DeleteGood eye IMO !
You read that article and interpreted it exactly like I did.
Thermal expansion (TE), oddly enough, will play a smaller and smaller role for SLR anywhere and anytime the oceans become saturated with heat.
The writer wrote as if TE is an unlimited aspect of SLR (GOT STEAM?, GOT ICE?).
TE takes place within certain parameters.
In the past, when anthropogenic global warming (AGW) was young (s/he was "born" circa 1750 as a wayward child of Industrial Civilization).
When AGW went out to play with the Earth, in general it heated the air first, then the land, and then the oceans.
TE was one of the first of AGW's bathtub toys.
The kid got tired of that toy, then started melting the cryosphere, which eventually led to ice sheet imbalance.
Before that, there had been a balanced budget in terms of income (snow on ice sheets and glaciers in cold weather), and expenditures (ice bergs calving as the ice got heavy, became an ice stream, and flowed into the sea as ice bergs).
The imbalance was a new source of SLR.
When it got warm enough, the annual snow on the ice sheets diminished, ice also melted, and the ice quantity imbalance began, along with SLR in due time.
As the imbalance increased in the form of ice mass loss, the the loss of gravity of the ice sheets also began.
As a result, some of the gravity captivated sea water close to coasts was released to the larger ocean area to be relocated by other forces, including the big dog (Earth gravity), but also ocean currents, axial location drift, rotational forces, not to mention Moon and Sun gravity.
That same rolocation dynamic takes place with melt water and ice bergs.
Displacement, e.g water level rising in a glass of water immediately when an ice cube is dropped into it, begins immediately upon leaving the land mass and entry into the sea, and relocation also begins immediately afterwards.
These are the dynamics that we need to watch now-a-days.
Giving TE and the like their due too, but no more than is real.