Sea Level Change

Project 1 - What can tide gauge data tell you about sea level change?

Below in GSheets is a graph of the average annual tidal height (mm) as a function of time in years for a tide gauge in Alaska.  Click on the tabs for additional sites.  

Need GSheets help, see Dealing with Scientific Data in Google Sheets:  Data > Model > Simulation -  YouTube tutorial videos and accompanying GSheets spreadsheets to gain hands-on skills!

Using the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level, illustrate how to find a tide gauge in or near your location, download the data (see YouTube video), graph and analyze the data, to determine relative sea level change for your local site.  A little background on tides is given here - The Ups and Downs of Tides (NEW).

To see how to use this in the classroom, check out Paradise Lost:   Chesapeake Bay and Sea Level Change and the interactive Excel file (right click and save as),  which describes relative sea level change, its causes, and the inundation of land, especially low-lying areas.  More resources for the classroom are given on links in the GSlides above.

With students working in groups, a nice online collaborative activity can be done by having groups enter results into a shared GSheets spreadsheet as shown below.  To spur a discussion have groups or individuals leave comments (provides a record) or use the chat feature (does not save).  Instructors may need to pose a question to help students get started.

What is the result of sea level rise?  Coastal flooding, see data for US Coastal Flooding Events (NEW with interactive map).

Project 2 - Using NASA Satellite Altimetry Data (Big Data)

Determining Global Mean Sea Level using NASA Satellite Altimetry (Sea Level Height) is summarized in the GSlides below.  This project and the next will involve some data translations, for a review click here.

The GSheets spreadsheet required for analysis is provided below.  

Project 3 - Examining the Causes of Sea Level Rise Using NASA/NOAA Satellite Data

Here we will examine seven different satellite data sets to see how they influence sea level.  To edit or interact with the spreadsheets , go to File > Make a copy… (this saves a copy into your Google account).  This project gets students examining large data sets and data with a large amount of scatter, which is being referred to as "messy data."

This is designed to be an online collaborative class project.  Student groups are assigned a data set from the list above.  Groups will report back to the class as a whole by producing a Google Slides summary and having a whole class discussion either face-to-face or via online.

Project 4 - Messy Data:  What is it?

Here we explore messy data, which is data with a large amount of scatter in it.  The scatter is typically produced by random error during the measurement process in many big data sets.  We attempt to develop a definition of messy data.  Examining errors, especially in multivariable systems, is a mind-set that needs to be developed.  See the Earthshine spreadsheet below to examine scatter.  We will modify the function machine to handle errors and be multivariable!

Project 5 - Sea Ice: It's Just Floating Frozen "Seawater"

Sea ice, a part of the Earth’s cryosphere, is measured by two different methods - extent and area.  Here we examine the differences and their changes over recent times for both polar regions.