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Isn't that relative sea level changes in places like Scandinavia - the sea isn't dropping, the land is rising?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_sea_level




Exactly.

Because the sensors are mounted on that very land.

So tectonic movement will certainly have an effect. And you can see remnants of earthquakes in some of the data.


In Scandinavia, isn't it glacial rebound rather than tectonic?


> 3. (geology) Of, relating to, or caused by large-scale movements of the Earth's (or a similar planet's) lithosphere

- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tectonic


I expect the parent is referring to human-caused melting of glaciers as the root cause of that tectonic movement, rather than the expected natural motion of the tectonic plates.


It's the glaciers melting at the end of the last Ice Age that Scandinavia is still rising from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Period#Weichselia...

> As a result of melting ice, the land has continued to rise yearly in Scandinavia, mostly in northern Sweden and Finland, where the land is rising at a rate of as much as 8–9 mm per year, or 1 m in 100 years. This is important for archaeologists, since a site that was coastal in the Nordic Stone Age now is inland and can be dated by its relative distance from the present shore.


Yeah, the sea must be "level" in some sense across the planet.

Don't know if local variations in gravity may have a measurable impact?


PDF of gravitational correction factors by geographical region for use in theoretical weighscale calibration (vs calibrating with actual test weights): https://hardyinst.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1588/...


The melting of glaciers themselves can have an impact on gravity, causing water levels to drop around them. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2018/...


The absolute value of gravity is (to oversimplify) the sea-level datum for current generation datums, like the delayed NGS (nominal year) 2022 datums.

They've (NGS) been flying absolute gravity measurement equipment in planes with precision GPS and lidar since ~2005 as part of the GRAV-D program.

Additionally, slight 'variations' (ie deviations from the expected circular/elliptical) in the orbits of GPS satellites can be used to infer slight variations in the gravity below.

Separately, the military likely has had all of this measured and modeled for decades as part of ballistic missile targeting, but remains mostly classified at useful resolutions.

The transitions from NGVD27 to NAVD88 to the work-in-progress 22 datum is exactly because the idea of a simple "universal" sea-level doesn't exist in the manor you would expect it to.

But even with the GRAV-D based datums, the actual observed water levels will occur at slightly different datum heights in different locations, for various geophysical reasons.




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