Re:Why Our Intuition About Sea-Level Rise Is Wrong
by wcoenen on Tuesday June 02, 2020 @10:01AM
(#23391069)
I guess because plainly visible "tall masses" are not the only things contributing to the geoid? E.g. earth crust thickness might dominate.
In the context of this discussion, we're not so much interested in the absolute shape of the geoid, as in how much it might change because of melting ice sheets
EGM96 is a definition of Earth's equipotential height constructed by measuring it with satellites like GRACE. Its as close to a definition of true sea level as you're going to get. But it doesn't have this kind of consistent uplift near tall masses throughout the model. The Southern Ocean's height is sinusoidal about Antarctica. We do see an increase in equipotential height in the Andes, and in the eastern Pacific nearby. But near the Himalayas the equipotential height is lower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Gravitational_Model...