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Evidences of the expanding Earth from spacegeodetic data over solid land and sea level rise
in recent two decades
ARTICLE JUNE 2015
DOI: 10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
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20
4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:
Wenbin Shen
Ziyu Shen
Wuhan University
Wuhan University
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Q1
Department of Geophysics, School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and
Geodesy of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University,
Wuhan 430079, China
c
School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
d
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, pr. Universitetsky, 13, Moscow 119992, Russia
article info
abstract
Article history:
According to the space-geodetic data recorded at globally distributed stations over solid
land spanning a period of more than 20-years under the International Terrestrial Reference
Frame 2008, our previous estimate of the average-weighted vertical variation of the Earth's
solid surface suggests that the Earth's solid part is expanding at a rate of 0.24 0.05 mm/a
in recent two decades. In another aspect, the satellite altimetry observations spanning
Keywords:
recent two decades demonstrate the sea level rise (SLR) rate 3.2 0.4 mm/a, of which 1.8
0.5 mm/a is contributed by the ice melting over land. This study shows that the oceanic
thermal expansion is 1.0 0.1 mm/a due to the temperature increase in recent half cen-
Ice melting
tury, which coincides with the estimate provided by previous authors. The SLR observation
Thermal expansion
by altimetry is not balanced by the ice melting and thermal expansion, which is an open
Earth expansion
problem before this study. However, in this study we infer that the oceanic part of the Earth
is expanding at a rate about 0.4 mm/a. Combining the expansion rates of land part and
oceanic part, we conclude that the Earth is expanding at a rate of 0.35 0.47 mm/a in recent
two decades. If the Earth expands at this rate, then the altimetry-observed SLR can be well
explained.
2015, Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and
hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access
article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/
4.0/).
Q2
* Corresponding author. Department of Geophysics, School of Geodesy and Geomatics/Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment and
Geodesy of Ministry of Education, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: wbshen@sgg.whu.edu.cn (Shen W.), theorhythm@foxmail.com (Shen Z.).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
1674-9847/ 2015, Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi
Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Shen W, et al., The evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land
and sea level rise in recent two decades, Geodesy and Geodynamics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
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1.
g e o d e s y a n d g e o d y n a m i c s 2 0 1 5 , v o l x n o x , 1 e5
Introduction
2.
Si
s2vi
(1)
where vG is the expanding rate of the Earth, vi the representative vertical velocity of the i th triangle, N the number of
triangles, Si the spherical area of the i th triangle, s2vi the
variance of the i th triangle, Pi the weight of vi. Here Pi is proportional to the areaSi of the i th triangle, and inversely proportional to the variance s2vi of vi.
The velocity of each triangle vtr is calculated by [16].
1
vtr vD vE vF
3
(2)
Cn0 Pn0 q
Pi
X X P
P
Cnm cos ml Snm sin ml Pnm q
n
(3)
P
Cn0 ,
P
Cnm
P
Snm
and
are spherical harmonic coefficients
where
obtained from grid values of uplift rate from PGR model [25],
Pn0 q and Pnm q are normalized Legendre functions defined
in geophysical convention (See Fig. 1).
Q3
Please cite this article in press as: Shen W, et al., The evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land
and sea level rise in recent two decades, Geodesy and Geodynamics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
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g e o d e s y a n d g e o d y n a m i c s 2 0 1 5 , v o l x n o x , 1 e5
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Fig. 1 e Distribution of 1572 stations under international terrestrial reference frame (ITRF) 2008. Plate boundaries are
denoted by green lines. Orogen belts are denoted in yellow. Information of both Plate boundaries and orogen belts are from
Bird (2003). 306 geodetic stations located in orogen belts are denoted in red (* Oro), while other 629 stations are denoted in
blue (* Used). GPS, DORIS, SLR and VLBI stations are denoted by dots, circus, squares and pentagons, respectively, and green
ones are used in estimating the expansion rate in this paper (cited from Ref. [16]).
The expansion rate aland over land using 629 stations and
that with PGR effect being considered are listed in Table 1.
3.
Sea level rise and estimate of oceanic
thermal expansion
According to current satellite altimetry observation, the
SLR is at the rate of about 3.2 0.4 mm with PGR effect
considered in recent two decades [21]. It is considered that the
observed SLR is mainly due to two causes [26]. The first is the
ice cap melting, which makes the water originally stored on
land flow into the sea. The second is the thermal expansion
due to the fact that the global temperature increase trend
[27] and the water becomes warmer [28]. The ice cap melting
over land in recent two decades generates 1.8 0.5 mm/a of
SLR [29].
In this section, we estimate the oceanic thermal expansion
based on the temperature change of the sea water. The temperature varies among various oceans and various depths.
However, the sea water has following properties: first, the upsurface water layer of 200 m is uniform; second, water layer
between 200 m and 1000 m decrease linearly; third, at the
depth of 1000 m, the temperature achieves 4 C, and below
that depth the water is little influenced by the temperature
increase of the upper water. The current temperature of global
Ti 17:4
4:0
5
athermal
5
X
629
0.54 0.05
0.24 0.05
(4)
(5)
gi dTi h
i1
ith layer
Number
of stations
used
i
i
i
i
i
1 (0e200 m)
2 (200e400 m)
3 (400e600 m)
4 (600e800 m)
5 (800e1000 m)
Average
Temperature
increase
temperature
( C)
dTi ( C/da)
17.4
14.7
12
9.3
6.6
0.13
0.10
0.08
0.05
0.03
Water
expansion
coefficient
gi (10 6/ C)
174
150
114
75
39
Please cite this article in press as: Shen W, et al., The evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land
and sea level rise in recent two decades, Geodesy and Geodynamics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
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g e o d e s y a n d g e o d y n a m i c s 2 0 1 5 , v o l x n o x , 1 e5
Table 3 e Sea level rise observations, unbalanced SLR, Earth expansion and balanced SLR in recent two decades.
Entities
Altimetry of SLR
Ice melting contribution to SLR
Thermal expansion contribution to SLR
Unbalanced SLR amount
Radial average variation in land part (aland)
Radial average variation in ocean part (aocean)
Radial average variation in whole Earth (a)
Balanced SLR amount
3.2
1.8
1.0
0.4
0.24
0.4
0.35
0.05
0:13
i
5
(6)
(7)
1:03mm=a
Hence, the SLR contributed by thermal expansion is estimated as 1.0 0.2 mm/a.
4.
Q4
1:8
p
1:0 0:42 0:52 0:22 0:40:67mm=a
(8)
ma
Pocean Pland
Authors
CU/CSIRO/NASAGSFC/NOAA (2014)
Meier 2007 [29]
This study
This study
Shen et al. [16]
This study
This study
This study
(9)
Acknowledgments
5.
0.4
0.5
0.2
0.67
0.05
0.67
0.47
0.82
(10)
Please cite this article in press as: Shen W, et al., The evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land
and sea level rise in recent two decades, Geodesy and Geodynamics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
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Please cite this article in press as: Shen W, et al., The evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land
and sea level rise in recent two decades, Geodesy and Geodynamics (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2015.05.006
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