Introducing Sea Level Change

Alastair Dawson is Honorary Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Dundee. He is a graduate of the University of Aberdeen, Louisiana State University and the University of Edinburgh. He has published over 100 academic papers on various aspects of sea level change research and coastal science undertaken over the last 40 years.

• Preface. List of illustrations and tables. 1: What does ‘sea level’ mean? 2: Evidence for former relative sea level changes; 3: Long-term chronologies of relative sea level change; 4: Reconstructing past changes in relative sea level; 5: Response of the Earth’s crust to surface loads; 6: Processes of relative sea level change; 7: Ancient and modern ice sheets and relative sea level changes; 8: Relative sea level change during the last glacial maximum; 9: Ice sheets and meltwater pulses; 10: Abandoning global sea level curves; 11: Present and future relative sea level change; 12: Understanding sea level change. Glossary. Selected further reading.

'This book is a timely publication due to current debates on climate change and is part of a series that focuses on introducing a particular subject area. It is a good format, not too long (only 84 pages, excluding glossary and further reading) and written in a way that is accessible to those at undergraduate level. The aim of the book is to introduce the subject of sea level change in a concise, readable way and to provide the reader with the key scientific information that is needed to understand the complex nature of sea level change. Sea level rise is an important issue within the broader topic of climate change. As about half the world's population lives near the coast, sea level rise is a real cause for concern for many people. However, sea level rise is not simply due to the melting of ice sheets and glaciers due to climate change, nor is the change uniform across the globe. Alistair Dawson attempts and succeeds to produce a 'rough guide' to sea level change by producing simple and straightforward explanations of a highly complicated topic.' The Holocene'Introducing Sea Level Change more than fulfils its aim of providing the key scientific information on which to understand and discuss the topic. It gives a concise and accessible overview of sea level change without compromising its scientific rigour. It would give any able sixth form student, undergraduate or teacher a focussed explanation of the topic. The book would also be of great value to policy-makers and members of the public who want to be better informed about such an important aspect of climate change and the environmental consequences of sea level change.' Teaching Earth Sciences'This succinct 101 pages text provides a scientific perspective on sea level change and enables readers from introductory students to general interest backgrounds to go beyond the hype and headline figures to forge an understanding of the causes, questions and rigorous techniques for estimating sea level change. One of the key strengths of the book is to demystify common misunderstandings about sea level, and a second is to delve deeply but simply into the quandaries which must be resolved in order to provide a good understanding of sea level change.' Scottish Geographical Journal'Introducing Sea Level Change packs a lot into 101 pages. A stimulating introductory chapter on the meaning of sea-level covers everything from the Potsdam gravity 'potato' and the geoidal surface, to the politics of sea-level change, via tide gauges, radar interferometry and the Last Glacial Maximum. The following three chapters deal with the reconstruction of past sea-level changes, including the types of evidence used, the construction of sea-level curves and the long-term record. Chapters 5 and 6 review what we know about the causes of sea-level change, including isostatic, eustatic and steric changes. Chapters 7-10 provide a view of long-term sea-level change over the last full glacial cycle. This section provides an excellent insight into the complexity of unravelling past sea-level change, from modelling the impact of the gravitational pull of former ice sheets on sea-level, to the evidence for meltwater pulses and catastrophic sea-level rise at the end of the last glaciation. The final two chapters of the book focus on present and future change, and the difficulties of predicting how sea-level rise will impact on different parts of the world.' Scottish Journal of Geology