253
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
S. J. Culver (ed.), Troubled Waters, Springer Climate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52383-1_15
Chapter 15
The Water, the Coast, the Future
Joy Moses-Hall
Abstract The trouble with water on Earth is that it doesn’t stay put. At any one
instant a droplet may be in the sky, in the ocean, frozen in a glacier, or in and among
the lands. That dynamic system is reviewed in this essay, following droplets and
following the accumulation of droplets that pins the totality of the waters, measured
as sea level, at times and places throughout Earth’s history, through the lenses of our
researchers. The message is that the Earth’s methods and responses follow the laws
of science and geology, and we can expect Earth to follow the same methods and
responses as the climate warms in coming years. Sea level imprints tell us what happened before, and what happens now will determine the sea level imprints of
the future.
Keywords Sea level · Shorelines · Sea-level rise · Eustatic sea level · Water cycle
It is raining again.
The droplets rush down from the sky, liquifying the air and hissing at the ground,
falling into puddles and downhill-racing rivulets, seeking sea level. Every individual drop that reaches or falls on the ocean adds a miniscule measure to the overall
height of the sea.
Yet the raindrops – and snowdrops – are returning to the very same water, mostly
ocean, from which they evaporated just days before, lifting from the water surface
and reducing the overall height of the sea by the same miniscule amount that each
raindrop adds. Over this short time scale, the loss of ocean to evaporation matches
the gain of ocean by precipitation, and the sea-level height remains stable. Sea level,
the worldwide position of the ocean on the landmasses, excluding the effects of
waves and tides, is a boundary we can see. We see it on maps, in satellite and drone
photos, on water gauges and on bridge pilings.
But over longer time spans, over years and centuries and millennia, those tide
gauges and satellite photos would show that sea level does not stay the same. The
J. Moses-Hall (*)
Math and Physics Department, Pitt Community College, Greenville, NC, USA
e-mail: jmoseshall@email.pittcc.edu
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to
Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
S. J. Culver (ed.), Troubled Waters, Springer Climate,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52383-1_15
Chapter 15
The Water, the Coast, the Future
Joy Moses-Hall
Abstract The trouble with water on Earth is that it doesn’t stay put. At any one
instant a droplet may be in the sky, in the ocean, frozen in a glacier, or in and among
the lands. That dynamic system is reviewed in this essay, following droplets and
following the accumulation of droplets that pins the totality of the waters, measured
as sea level, at times and places throughout Earth’s history, through the lenses of our
researchers. The message is that the Earth’s methods and responses follow the laws
of science and geology, and we can expect Earth to follow the same methods and
responses as the climate warms in coming years. Sea level imprints tell us what happened before, and what happens now will determine the sea level imprints of
the future.
Keywords Sea level · Shorelines · Sea-level rise · Eustatic sea level · Water cycle
It is raining again.
The droplets rush down from the sky, liquifying the air and hissing at the ground,
falling into puddles and downhill-racing rivulets, seeking sea level. Every individual drop that reaches or falls on the ocean adds a miniscule measure to the overall
height of the sea.
Yet the raindrops – and snowdrops – are returning to the very same water, mostly
ocean, from which they evaporated just days before, lifting from the water surface
and reducing the overall height of the sea by the same miniscule amount that each
raindrop adds. Over this short time scale, the loss of ocean to evaporation matches
the gain of ocean by precipitation, and the sea-level height remains stable. Sea level,
the worldwide position of the ocean on the landmasses, excluding the effects of
waves and tides, is a boundary we can see. We see it on maps, in satellite and drone
photos, on water gauges and on bridge pilings.
But over longer time spans, over years and centuries and millennia, those tide
gauges and satellite photos would show that sea level does not stay the same. The
J. Moses-Hall (*)
Math and Physics Department, Pitt Community College, Greenville, NC, USA
e-mail: jmoseshall@email.pittcc.edu