Sea Level Total

Contributions to sea level rise from 1961 to 2003. In principle, it should be possible to add up each of the individual components of sea level rise—melting continental ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, retreating glaciers, the thermal expansion of near-surface water, thermal expansion of the deep ocean, and changes in water storage on land—to calculate the total rise over time. Unfortunately, early attempts to balance the sea level budget never added up. Each line on this graph shows how many millimeters each process added to or subtracted from total sea level since the early 1960s. (Graph adapted from Domingues 2008.) http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page5.php