OCEAN LECTURE SERIES

"The Rise and Fall of Mean Sea Level"
• Dr. Ned Smith

About the Lecture - 2007

We hear and read a lot about sea level rise these days, but over geological time scales the surface of the ocean has been both rising and falling. This lecture looks back over the millennia to trace the initial rise of the ocean as it formed, then the alternating rise and fall of the World Ocean ever since.

As water is alternately stored and removed from vast high-latitude reservoirs, including Greenland and Antarctica, large regions of the present-day exposed coastal plain have temporarily become submerged continental shelf, and vice versa. Examples will include former coastlines of the World Ocean during periods of high and low water.

The lecture ends with a discussion of sea level rise estimates covering the next hundred years. Climate models, predict a range of possibilities, depending on changes in population, technology, and economic conditions. The most likely scenarios suggest a rise of between 1 and 1.5 feet.

About the Speaker

Ned Smith received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin. Ned was intending to get a Ph.D. in meteorology with an oceanography minor when he took part in a 93-day oceanographic cruise in the summer of 1968. After zig-zagging across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and with ports of call in Bermuda, the Canary Islands, Senegal, and Liberia, he became so enthusiastic about marine science that he reversed his major and minor fields of study. Ned received his Ph.D. degree in Oceanography and Limnology in 1972.

After six years at the University of Texas' Port Aransas Marine Laboratory, Ned came to Harbor Branch in 1977. Since then, he has been investigating shallow-water transport processes along the Atlantic coast of Florida, in the Florida Keys, and in the Bahamas. Ned is a "descriptive physical oceanographer," forming his opinions and drawing conclusions from direct measurements made in field studies. His research interests include wind-driven and tidal circulation in estuaries, upwelling in coastal waters, and air-water heat energy exchanges.