Sea Level Changes (Eustatic Change)
The sea level on earth regularly rises and falls due to climatic changes. During cold periods more of the Earth’s water is stored as ice in glaciers while during warm periods it is released and sea levels rise to cover more land. Sea levels are currently quite high, while just 18,000 years ago during the Pleistocene ice age they were quite low. Global warming may result in further rises in the future, which presents a risk to coastal cities as most would be flooded by only small rises. As sea levels rise, fjords and rias form. Fjords are flooded glacial valleys and rias are flooded river valleys. Fjords typically have steep rocky sides, while rias have dendritic drainage patterns typical of drainage zones. As tectonic plates move about the Earth they can rise and fall due to changing pressures and the presence of glaciers. If a beach is moving upwards relative to other plates this is known as isostatic change and raised beaches can be formed.
See also: Beach evolutionRead more about this topic: Coastal Geography
Famous quotes containing the words sea and/or level:
“For half a mile from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak.... This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,—more tumultuous, my companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only one sail in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously seeking a harbor.... It was the roaring sea, thalassa exeessa.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For him nor deep nor hill there is,
But all’s one level plain he hunts for flowers.”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)