Title: Sea-level rise « World Ocean Review
Headings: 
Sea-level rise – an unavoidable threat
Loss of habitats and cultural treasures

Content: Since then, sea level has remained largely unchanged, apart from minor fluctuations amounting to a few centimetres per century. 3.2 > Every time there is a storm, the North Sea continues its relentless erosion of the coast near the small English town of Happisburgh. The old coastal defences are largely ineffective. Here, a Second World War bunker has fallen from the eroded cliffs, while elsewhere along the coast, homes have already been lost to the sea. Sea-level rise Sea-level rise has various causes. Eustatic rise results from the melting of glaciers and the discharge of these water masses into the sea. Isostatic rise, on the other hand, is caused by tectonic shifts such as the rise and fall of the Earth’s crustal plates. Thermal expansion, in turn, is caused by the expansion of seawater due to global warming. Measured against the minor changes occurring over the last 6000 years, the global sea-level rise of 18 cm over the course of the last century is considerable. Over the past decade alone, sea level rose by 3.2 cm, according to measurements taken along the coast in the last century and, since 1993, satellite monitoring of the elevation of land and water surfaces worldwide (satellite altimetry).