Ocean Plate Tectonics in Deformation Mode: Billions at Risk

US AID 10 Year Commeration of 2004 Indonesia Tsunami

Throw most of everything you know about Sea Level Rise and Ocean Tectonics out the window…

On January 8 Science Alert reported that “the Bottom of the Ocean has started sinking under the weight of melting Glaciers”.

Sea level rise -affecting millions of people globally and threatening billions more in near future until recently was linked to three primary factors. “All induced by this ongoing global climate change,” National Geographic explains and lists “Thermal Expansion, Melting Glaciers and Polar Ice Caps and Ice Loss from Greenland and West Antarctica” as the three main issues at hand. But now a new study assures that the amount of water which is flooding the ocean has increased to a level in which its own weight is sinking the ocean floor. If the study is accurate sea level increase predictions would be off the mark.

While some Scientists are recalculting sea level increase others being to dig deep into the relationship between ocean floor tectonic deformation and natural disasters as well as the consequences for global and regional ocean geology.

“Decades of measurements and predictions of sea level rise could have underestimated the scale of the problem, experts warn, due to scientists not accounting for the weighty, warping effects of our ever burgeoning oceans,” Science Alert warned.

 

"The Earth itself is not a rigid sphere, it's a deforming ball," Geoscientist Thomas Frederikse from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands lead author of the new study told International media.

Despite Frederikse´s paper refers specifically to how the increase of water weight is affecting the ocean floor and does not study how this deformation could affect Ocean Tectonic Dynamics it does open the door to begin asking paramount questions.

Ocean Tectonics and the dynamics of Ocean Crust Formation and Destruction is not only a fascinating geological process but is known for the formation of land as well as destructive natural disasters in minor and grand scale. Earthquakes, tsunamis, sea level changes, Volcanic eruptions and volcanic processes, magmatic events, sinking of entire islands...these are all linked to Ocean Tectonics.

“Existing assessments of sea level rise haven't factored in that as the total ocean mass increases due to melting glaciers and ice sheets, the weight of all that extra water pushes down on the sinking ocean floor, deforming the seabed – and disguising just how much the oceans are truly swelling,” International press reported.

"With climate change, we do not only change temperature," Thomas Frederikse said.

Frederikse and his team concluded that the ocean bottom subsides elastically. They also are confident and state that Satellite Observations can not factor in this deformation of the ocean floor.

“Satellite readings only tell us one side of the story: geocentric sea level rise, as seen from the surface side,” the Team explained.

Newsweek jumped into the news and reported that the new paper actually poses a “bigger problem than previously believed”.

“This ocean floor deformation also means we have miscalculated just how much ocean levels are rising,” Newsweek reported.

The paper assures that in the past 20 years the ocean basins have sunk an average of 0.004 inches per year. “This means that the ocean is 0.08 inches deeper than it was two decades ago. While this small fragment of an inch may not seem much, oceans cover 70 % of our planet, making the problem bigger than it seems at first glance,” the media echoed the report published at Geophysical Research Letters.

Actually there is no constant Ocean Floor. Beneath the ocean waters the geology is impressive. From the tallest mountains on earth, to deepest abyss on the planet, vast plains to ridges, islands, underwater mounts, the ocean floor is molded by tectonic plates and tectonic dynamics which take diverse shapes...These plates float upon an active magmatic ocean. Mayor plates are the Eurasian Plate, The Indian Plate, the Australian Plate,  the African and Arabian Plate, the Caribbean Plate, the North American Plate, the Nazca Plate, the Scotia Plate and the Pacific Plate.  These plate are constantly moving, they can interact in diverse ways such as subduction process in which one plate sink beneath another plate, they can collide, create new ocean floor known as ocean crust and destroy ocean crust, as well as create volcanic and magmatic processes. Violent events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, coast deformations and volcanic eruptions are all linked to the way in which these plates behave.

The paper “Ocean Bottom Deformation Due To Present-Day Mass Redistribution and Its Impact on Sea Level Observations,” of Geoscientist Thomas Frederikse does not refer in any way how their measurements of Sea Level Increase and “Ocean Floor Deformation” will affect plate tectonics dynamics but does conclude that the “ocean floor is being deformed”. That the “ocean floor” is elastic is not a new concept at all. It is in constant motion and mutation.   

“Present-day mass redistribution increases the total ocean mass and, on average, causes the ocean bottom to subside elastically. Therefore, barystatic sea level rise is larger than the resulting global mean geocentric sea level rise, observed by satellite altimetry and GPS-corrected tide gauges. We use realistic estimates of mass redistribution from ice mass loss and land water storage to quantify the resulting ocean bottom deformation and its effect on global and regional ocean volume change estimates,” the paper states.  

“Over 1993–2014, the resulting globally averaged geocentric sea level change is 8% smaller than the barystatic contribution. Over the altimetry domain, the difference is about 5%, and due to this effect, barystatic sea level rise will be underestimated by more than 0.1 mm/yr over 1993–2014. Regional differences are often larger: up to 1 mm/yr over the Arctic Ocean and 0.4 mm/yr in the South Pacific. Ocean bottom deformation should be considered when regional sea level changes are observed in a geocentric reference frame,” the paper adds.

Why haven't scientists considered the fact that the weight of all this new water coming from the melting masses of polar ice deforme the ocean floor and affect sea level increase? Frederikse explains that usually sea level increase is measured using Satellite Altimetry.

“However, because satellite altimetry observes sea level in a geocentric reference frame, global mean sea level estimates derived from altimetry will not observe the increase in ocean volume due to ocean bottom subsidence, and hence, they may underestimate GMSL rise,” Frederikse said.

Frederikse took to complex equations to measure and solve new sea level rises and impacts.

While Ocean Tectonic processes are of extreme concern to the Scientific and International community, Sea Level Rise in itself is also an issue of grave concern.

”The results show that the ocean is changing in ways we didn't realize and is sinking further into the earth’s crust. As a result, scientists have underestimated how much sea levels are rising by as much as 8%. The study concludes by emphasizing that future sea level measurement should take ocean floor deformation into account in order to more accurately understand how our oceans are evolving,” International Press reported.

“The first people to notice the repercussions of rising sea levels are those who live in coastal areas. Rising waters mean less land to live on. In addition, more water in the ocean means that ocean storms, such as hurricanes, have the potential to be stronger and more devastating,” National Geographic reports.

“Small coastal areas won’t be the only ones to disappear due to rising waters, and if current estimates are correct, by 2100 the ocean will rise between 11 and 38 inches, a number that could mean that much of the U.S. east coast will be covered in water,” National Geographic ads.  

To the date sea level rise has already affected millions of people not only in coastal and island regions. Near future and Future predictions assure that sea level increase is on a irreversible path and that it will affect billions of people globally. Some

“When sea levels rise rapidly, as they have been doing, even a small increase can have devastating effects on coastal habitats. As seawater reaches farther inland, it can cause destructive erosion, wetland flooding, aquifer and agricultural soil contamination, and lost habitat for fish, birds, and plants. When large storms hit land, higher sea levels mean bigger, more powerful storm surges that can strip away everything in their path,” National Geographic reporters write it off.

“In addition, hundreds of millions of people live in areas that will become increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Higher sea levels would force them to abandon their homes and relocate. Low-lying islands could be submerged completely,” they kick it.

NASA´s latest Sea Level Increase Charts are more than worrying. Their chart which uses Satellite Data from 1993 to the Present measures a rate of change of 3.2 milliliters per year with a margin ±0.4.

When NOAA is confronted with the question; “Is Sea Level Rising?” they are quick to respond. “Yes, Sea Level is rising at an increasing rate”.

With continued ocean and atmospheric warming, sea levels will likely rise for many centuries at rates higher than that of the current century. In the United States, almost 40 % of the population lives in relatively high-population-density coastal areas, where sea level plays a role in flooding, shoreline erosion, and hazards from storms. Globally, eight of the world's 10 largest cities are near a coast, according to the UN Atlas of the Oceans.

Roads, bridges, subways, water supplies, oil and gas wells, power plants, sewage treatment plants, landfills -virtually all human infrastructure is at risk from sea level rise.

NASA researchers recently predicted that we are currently "locked into at least three feet of sea level rise, and probably more by the end of the century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change listed the "Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Cook Islands (in the Pacific Ocean); Antigua and Nevis (in the Caribbean Sea); and the Maldives (in the Indian Ocean)," as the most vulnerable nations to the effects of climate change.

From Australia, to Indonesia, South East Asia, to New Orleans, New York City, Florida, Venice, Bangkok, Shanghai, Bangladesh, Netherlands, Africa, South and Central America...the small and unstoppable increase is causing wreckage and knows no barriers.

Science and facts have already established that small changes in sea level and minor changes in Ocean Tectonics can have significant consequences. Scientists insist for a transparent discussion on the relationship between sea level increase, plate tectonics, storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, and undersea geologic features, the ocean ecology and our Global Society.

...“At approximately 7:59 in the morning on December 26, 2004, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the Indian Ocean triggered a devastating tsunami, killing more than 200,000 people in 14 countries, with an estimated 170,000 Indonesians in Aceh Province,” US Aid reported on December 24, 2014 in a 10 Year after Commemoration of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami...words which linger still….