If sea levels are falling, where is all the water going?

Question

In providing evidence to refute global warming it's been claimed that sea levels are falling - I beleive the figure is 35cm in 150 years. If true, where is all the water going?

The seas and oceans cover 375 million square kilometres, removing 350mm of water means that hiding somewhere on the planet is 131,250 cubic kilometres of water - the same as 271 Lake Eries or 27 Lake Michigans.

I'm not aware that lakes have been springing up all over the place or that there's 31.5 metres (100 feet) of snow lying on the ground (that's the depth the snow would be if all the water fell as snow in areas where snowfall occurs).

Maybe the water never left the sea in the first place and it's all a mistake based on an erroneous bench mark carved on a harbour wall in somewhere like Tasmania. Maybe that one measurement is wrong and the thousands upon thousands of other ones are right.

What do you think? Where is all that water?

SOME QUICK COMMENTS.

TERRY: Surface expansion would account for it but if sea levels fall there is surface contraction.

XCHRIS: Sea levels are rising. The increase in atmopsheric water vapour is a direct consequence of warmer air masses, there is more WV in the atmosphere but it's a small increase.

DIANE / LUV DYLAN: Sea levels are rising, for the reasons you mentioned and thermal expansion of the oceans.

DANA: I've noticed the increase in Jello, particularly when they had that Jello Party, there was Jello everywhere, maybe you're onto something.

RANDO: Good point, the ice caps of the interior of Greenland and Antarctic are thickening, the increae is more than offset by thinning and ice loss around the edges.

CATCH ME: I was hoping someone (particularly the person who keeps saying sea levels are falling) could provide a plausible explanation as to where all that water was going.

MARY: The 'water' on Mars is carbon dioxide, Mars is so much colder then Earth and the gas freezes to form the two polar ice caps. One of the great mysteries for scientists is to discover is water did flow on Mars at a time when it was much hotter than it is now.

MR JELLO: Some of your answers are so extraordinary that it's impossible to tell if you're being serious or not, as in this case.

DARTH K: The question really pertains to claims by certain skeptics on here that sea levels are falling and this is therefore proof that global warming is a hoax (I can't figure it out either).

COMMONSENSEMUM: Good point but as seas and oceans erode the land the material is deposited into the seas causing them to rise. Water that ends up on land soon finds it's way back to the sea through rivers, streams etc.

RICHARD: Interesting points there and indeed, water doesn't 'disappear' it has to go to or come from somewhere.

Answer 1

living on a small, stable island in the middle of the tropical pacific ocean, the signs that the sea is actually rising are undebatable. many shorelines stable for a hundred years have shown major erosion in the past three or four years and catastrophic erosion in the past two years. trees one hundred years growing on the shore inside reefs have suddenly been eroded out by a consistently higher sea - during all tide changes - and even some old sewers have been exposed, ocean side parks parks and structures washed away.
the older people especially say it is obvious.
can't deny what we see for ourselves.
hope you know the truth when you read it.
no time but for change.

blessings

Answer 2

The land is eroding away on all coastlines, so can the measurements you speak of be accurate? Shore lines change with the storms, etc... (I live in Florida, where hurricanes have pushed back many shorelines, and disintegrated some barrier islands). And being the measurement was taken in CA. One of the most unstable land masses on earth. I think the supposed drop in sea levels is more fiction, to try and rebut global warming. The sea levels are rising faster every year. The Glaciers, the Polar Ice cap, and Greenland are melting. More water around Greenland, and the polar ice cap, capture the sun, instead of reflecting it, thus speeding up the melting process. We have almost reached the tipping point, where it will be too late, to stop it.

Where did all the water go? Think about it. A lot of water was pushed on to the land during storms, tsunami's, etc...not all the water gets pushed back in to the sea. A good portion of it saturates the land, and ends up underground. There could be many reasons you think the water in the seas are getting lower, but 35cm in 150 years, is very minute, and you have to allow room for error. hasn't California had a couple of good earthquakes in the last 150 years. That right there would tell me the measurements are inaccurate, because California is always moving up or down a few cm. with each quake.

Sorry, but I still think Global warming is a real problem, and all the naysayers will be sorry one day, when NYC, starts to flood, as well as many low lying coastal areas.

Answer 3

Let's say that graph is legit, what sea level fall are you talking about? You mean that little bit at the end over a few months period? You honestly believe that has any significance on the overall rise in sea level? I think the problem here is your failure to understand what you're seeing. You can't make an assumption like sea level is falling just because of a very short period where it may have dropped a few millimeters, when there is up and down variability the entire time due to seasonal change, and look at the end of that graph... It's rising again! Just a bad argument.

Answer 4

The water in the oceans today is the same body of water that covered Denver Colorado and in which the Dinosaurs lived at 6000 feet above todays sea level. It is the same body of water that covered Nineveh in Mesopotamia before that city was established by Noahs grandson Nimrod. It is the same body of water that slowly declined to foster the Mesopotamian Civilization, The Indus Civilization, Egyptian and Chinese Civilizations. It is the same body of water that keeps declining and exposed new land around the United States today. It is the same ocean we have with us today that floated Noahs Ark on top of Mount Ararat which is 16900 feet above sea level today. It is the same ocean that the Israelites crossed at Pithom when the Red Sea was there. It is the same ocean that made salt at Ostia and is now fifteen feet below the salt pans. It is the same ocean that made Baghdad a port on the Gulf and is today 350 miles away and 135 feet lower. It is the same ocean that made Ur of the Chaldees a port on the gulf and is now 200 miles away and 125 feet lower.
It is the same sea that made Sandwich the largest harbor in Britain and its the same sea that left Sandwich and is three miles away today. It is the same ocean that left Ephesus six miles inland since the time of St Pauls visits. All this tells us that the amount of ocean has not changed but our earth is expanding and hence sea levels must fall. QED.

Answer 5

How can the water disappear, if matter is not created or destroyed?

My only guesses would be we are wasting water, the beaches are eroding and making the oceans bigger or its evaporating faster than its being replenished.

I really don't know, its just a guess.
And where is the proof that the ocean levels are getting lower, lakes are disappearing in some regions of the world but I've never herd of the sea levels lowering, only raising.

Answer 6

Sea levels are not falling. They are rising. Up 20 centimeters since 1880. The cause is glaciers on land melting and the melt water flowing down into the sea.

If there were global cooling, then snowfall would be accumulating on land and the glaciers would be growing and not shrinking. And that snow would made of water that had evaporated out of the sea, lowering sea level.

(EDIT)
Ha! I just noticed in the source that geologically stable tide gage location number 20 is San Francisco. Who would believe that San Francisco is geologically stable? Not me!

Answer 7

Well there's been a rather large increase in Jello lately. Jello is mostly water, after all.

Awesome. Jello - who was the source of the falling sea levels claim - didn't even attempt a serious answer to this question.

How...expected.

Answer 8

It would be in the form of ice or just more water in the atmosphere maybe. However, sea levels are rising, they are not falling.

Answer 9

Mars shows signs of water. Most likely water flowed on the surface of that planet at sometime. And just not a little water either, as great 'canals' show movements of large quantities of water.

Where is it now? Did it just disappear? Well? Where's that water now?

Answer 10

From what i know sea levels are rising??, Its getting hotter, hince the ice is melting, hence the water level is rising.