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To measure the average sea level is a challenge for scientists. The surface changes every day and second due to waves, temperature, salinity, wind and gravity forced by the moon and the sun. Regional effects like melting glaciers make it even more complicated.

In the long term current Earth’s ice shields mostly located at Greenland and Antarctica may rise sea level up to 4-6 meters when they melt which is a common discussed value. Alex Tingle’s Flood maps uses Google Maps and elevation data from NASA to simulate the changes to the land shape of continents. See the impact of 6 meters for the Netherlands, Tokio, Bangladesh or New York all places millions of people are living and working.

44 % of the world’s population live within 150 kilometres of the coast. [UNEP]. Living near water has significant advantages and more and more people are attracted. 11 of 15 mega cities (population > 10mill) will be affected by a rising sea level and changes here will trigger migration and economic issues.

NASA scientists use satellites and floats to get a clearer picture of the ocean’s behavior in different parts of the world. A sophisticated experiment measures changes in the mass of Antarctica [GRACE]. Since the launch of the twin satellites March 2002 collected data shows that Antarctica ice lost enough mass to raise global sea level by 1.5 millimeters.

Read more: Earth Observatory, ARGO, PNAS, NASA JPL, GLOSS, SEDAC, More about Flood Maps or google.

Credits background graph: Robert Simmon from Leuliette, E., Nerem, R., and Mitchum, G. (2004). Calibration of TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason altimeter data to construct a continuous record of mean sea level change. Marine Geodesy, 27(1-2), 79-94.