April 3ed lecture

Question 1

What is the average area of ice on earth?

Answer 1

15,600,000

km2

Question 2

What is the average thickness of ice on earth?

Answer 2

1.6km

Question 3

What is the average ice volume on earth?

Answer 3

24,960,000 km3

Question 4

What would the volume of all the melted ice be?

Answer 4

22,464,000 km3

Question 5

What is the average area of oceans and seas?

Answer 5

361,000,000 km2

Question 6

If we added together all the melted ice and the ocean water together how much would the ocean rise?

Answer 6

62.2m

Question 7

What is the mean land elevation?

Answer 7

840m

Question 8

Is it possible for the “water world” sinareo to happen?

Answer 8

no it is not possible as the mean land elevation is 840m and the ocean would only rise 62.2m

Question 9

What is the rate of sea level rise per year?

Answer 9

1.5m/year to 3.5mm per year

Question 10

How high are sea levels said to rise in the next 100 years?

Answer 10

10s of cm to 1m

Question 11

What are the advantages of using tide gauges for global sea level measurements

Answer 11

• Historical information goes back to the 1900’s

- Useful for calibrating on board altimetry systems

Question 12

What are the disadvantages of using tide gauges for global sea level measurements

Answer 12

• heterogeneous and limited coverage
• gaps in data records
• land motion contamination
• Data sensitive to local perturbations

Question 13

What are the advantages of Satellite altimetry for measuring global mean sea levels?

Answer 13

• High precision
• High spatio-temporal resolution
• Global coverage
• Absolute measurements

Question 14

What are the disadvantages of Satellite altimetry for measuring global mean sea levels?

Answer 14

• Time series still short (20 years)

- No coverage of high latitude oceans (T/P and Jason)