Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-9b74x Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-04T08:49:20.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 13 - Sea level and life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2014

David Pugh  and
Philip Woodworth
David Pugh
Affiliation:
National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool
Philip Woodworth
Affiliation:
National Oceanography Centre, Liverpool
Get access

Summary

Most of the time I understated what I saw because I couldn’t find words powerful enough, but that’s the nature of marine life and the inland bays I grew up on. You’d have to be a scientist, a poet and a comedian to hope to describe it all accurately, and even then you’d often fall short.

Jim Lynch, The Highest Tide

Introduction

This chapter contains our personal selection of topics on how the tides and sea-level changes have played important roles in the development of life, and in human history. The populations of coastal zones are increasing dramatically, and tides, storm surges and long-term sea-level changes will continue to play important roles in our lives. Impacts of sea-level change will take place alongside those due to many other climate and environmental stresses.

It is our belief that, if these impacts are to be avoided, or managed, as far as possible, then we have to learn more about the space and time scales of sea-level change and the various reasons for them. Also we have to communicate a greater appreciation of how tides and sea levels have contributed to the coastal environment in general, providing many communities with food sources and places to live and thrive, contributions that continue in many and varied ways today.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Sea-Level Science
Understanding Tides, Surges, Tsunamis and Mean Sea-Level Changes
 , pp. 345 - 360
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Dostal, J., Murphy, J. B. and Nance, R. D. 2009. History of the Earth. Volume 2 of Earth System: History and Natural Variability, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems. Developed under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Oxford, UK: Eolss Publishers ().Google Scholar
Rona, P. A., Klinkhammer, G., Nelsen, T. A., Trefry, J. H. and Elderfield, H. 1986. Black smokers, massive sulphides and vent biota at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Nature, 321, 33–37, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oró, J., Miller, S. L. and Lazcano, A. 1990. The origin and early evolution of life on Earth. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 18, 317–356, .CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benn, C. R. 2001. The Moon and the origin of life. Earth, Moon and Planets, 85–86, 61–66, .Google Scholar
Hoare, P. 2013. The Sea Inside. London: Fourth Estate.Google Scholar
See .
Barbier, E. B., Hacker, S. D., Kennedy, C. et al. 2011. The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services. Ecological Monographs, 81, 169–193, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raffaelli, D. and Hawkins, S. 1999. Intertidal Ecology (2nd edition). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Barnes, R. S. K. and Hughes, R. N. 1999. An Introduction to Marine Ecology (3rd edition). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carson, R. L. 1955. The Edge of the Sea. New York: Houghton Mifflin and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ricketts, E. F., Calvin, J. and Hedgpeth, J. W. 1939. Between Pacific Tides. This classic account revised by Phillips, D. W. 1992. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Stephenson, T. A. and Stephenson, A. 1972. Life Between the Tide Marks on Rocky Shores. First published 1949. San Francisco, CA: Freeman.Google Scholar
Lewis, J. R. 1964. The Ecology of Rocky Shores. London: English Universities Press.Google Scholar
Pugh, D. T. 2004. Changing sea levels. Effects of Tides, Weather and Climate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Denny, M. W. and Gaines, S. D. 2007. Encyclopaedia of Tide Pools and Rocky Shores (Encyclopaedia Of The Natural World). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Little, C., Williams, G. A. and Trowbridge, C. D. 2009. The Biology of Rocky Shores (Biology of Habitats). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McLachlan, A. and Brown, A. C. 2010. Ecology of Sandy Shores. Amsterdam: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pugh, D. T. and Rayner, R. F. 1974. The tidal regimes of three Indian Ocean atolls and some ecological implications. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 13, 389–407, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, B. E., Dunne, R. P., Scoffin, T. P. and Le Tissier, M. D. A. 1994. Solar damage in intertidal corals. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 105, 219–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sale, P. F. 1991. The Ecology of Fishes on Coral Reefs. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hopley, D. 2011. Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nybakken, J. W. and Bertness, M. D. 2004. Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach (6th edition). San Francisco, CA: Benjamin Cummings.Google Scholar
Frieler, K., Meinshausen, M., Golly, A. et al. 2012. Limiting global warming to 2°C is unlikely to save most coral reefs. Nature Climate Change, 3, 165–170, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webb, A. P. and Kench, P. S. 2010. The dynamic response of reef islands to sea-level rise: evidence from multi-decadal analysis of island change in the Central Pacific. Global and Planetary Change, 72, 234–246, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robertson, D. R., Petersen, C. W. and Brawn, J. D. 1990. Lunar reproductive cycles of benthic-brooding reef fishes: reflections of larval biology or adult biology?Ecological Monographs, 60, 311–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greer Walker, M., Harden Jones, F. R. and Arnold, G. P. 1978. The movements of plaice (Pleuronectes platessa L.) tracked in the open sea. Journal du Conseil International pour l’Éxploration de la Mer, 38, 58–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metcalfe, J. D., Arnold, G. P. and Webb, P. W. 1990. The energetics of migration by selective tidal stream transport: an analysis for plaice tracked in the southern North Sea. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 70, 149–162, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, E., Cotton, R. J., Metcalfe, J. D. et al. 2009. Large scale seasonal swimming patterns of plaice in the North Sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 392, 167–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, R. N. 2003. Go with the flow: tidal migration of marine animals. Hydrobiologica, 503, 153–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forward, R. B., and Tankersley, R. A. 2001. Selective tidal stream transport of marine animals. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 39, 305–353.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. H. and Forward, R. B. 2009. Zooplankton diel vertical migration: a review of proximate control. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review, 47, 77–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDougall, I., Brown, F. H. and Fleagle, J. G. 2005. Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. Nature, 433, 733–736, .CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
(1) Lambeck, K. 1996. Shoreline reconstructions for the Persian Gulf since the last glacial maximum. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 142, 43–57, . (2) Lambeck, K., Purcell, A., Flemming, N. C. et al. 2011. Sea level and shoreline reconstructions for the Red Sea: isostatic and tectonic considerations and implications for hominid migration out of Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews, 30, 3542–3574, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.08.008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Church, J. A., Aarup, T., Woodworth, P. L. et al. 2010. Sea-level rise and variability: synthesis and outlook for the future. In Understanding Sea-Level Rise and Variability (eds. Church, J. A., Woodworth, P. L., Aarup, T. and Wilson, W. S.), pp. 402–419. London: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flemming, N. C., Bailey, G. N., Courtillot, V. et al. 2003. Coastal and marine palaeo-environments and human dispersal points across the Africa-Eurasia boundary. In Maritime Heritage (eds. Brebbia, C. A. and Gambin, T.), pp. 61–74. Southampton: Wessex Institute of Technology and Malta: University of Malta.Google Scholar
(1) Harding, A., Cadogan, G. and Howell, R. 1969. Pavlopetri, an underwater Bronze Age town in Laconia. Annual of the British School at Athens, 64, 113–142. (2) Smith, K. 2009. Mapping the world’s oldest submerged town. Nature News, . (3) .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hancock, G. 2003. Underworld, Flooded Kingdoms of the Ice Age. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Bannermann, N. and Jones, C. 1999. Fish-trap types: a component of the maritime cultural landscape. The Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 28, 70–84, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, J. H. and Hunter, J. R. 1974. Fronts in the Irish Sea. Nature, 250, 404–406, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, B. E., Sharples, J., Ross, O. N. et al. 2010. Sub-surface hotspots in shallow seas: fine-scale limited locations of top predator foraging habitat indicated by tidal mixing and sub-surface chlorophyll. Marine Ecolology Progress Series, 408, 207–226, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, D. W. and Swan, L. 1981. Teachings of the Tides. Nanaimo, British Columbia: Theytus Books.Google Scholar
Fagan, B. 2013. The Attacking Ocean: The Past, Present, and Future of Rising Sea Levels. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Ryan, W. and Pitman, W. 1998. Noah’s Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Kraft, J. C., Rapp, G., Kayan, I. and Luce, J. V. 2003. Harbor areas at ancient Troy: sedimentology and geomorphology complement Homer’s Iliad. Geology, 31, 163–166, .2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraft, J. C., Rapp, G., Szemler, G. J., Tziavos, C. and Kase, E. W. 1987. The pass at Thermopylae, Greece. Journal of Field Archaeology, 14, 181–198, .Google Scholar
vSee
Cartwright, D. and Conway, C. A. 1991. Maldon and the tides. The Cambridge Review, 112, 180–183.Google Scholar
Waters, R. 2006. The Lost Treasure of King John: The Fenland’s Greatest Mystery. Lincoln: Tucann Design and Print.Google Scholar
See
Parker, B. 2011. The tide predictions for D-Day. Physics Today, 64(9), 35–40, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zetler, B. D. 1991. Military tide predictions in World War II. In Tidal Hydrodynamics (ed. Parker, B. B.), pp. 791–797. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Cartwright, D. E. 1999. Tides: A Scientific History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Radford, E. and Radford, M. A. 1949. Encyclopaedia of Superstitions. Kessinger Publishing, reprinted in 2010 by The Philosophical Library, New York.Google Scholar
Price, J. and Karim, I. 1978. Matiruku, a Fijian madness: an initial assessment. British Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 228–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drews, C. and Han, W. 2010. Dynamics of wind setdown at Suez and the eastern Nile Delta. PLoS ONE, 5(8), e12481, .CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nicholls, R. J. 2010. Impacts of and responses to sea-level rise.In Understanding Sea-Level Rise and Variability (eds. Church, J. A., Woodworth, P. L., Aarup, T. and Wilson, S.), pp. 17–51. London: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, W. S., Abdalati, W., Alsdorf, D. et al. 2010. Observing systems needed to address sea-level rise and variability. Understanding Sea-Level Rise and Variability (eds. Church, J. A., Woodworth, P. L., Aarup, T. and Wilson, W. S.), pp. 376–401. London: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Church, J. A., Woodworth, P. L., Aarup, T. and Wilson, W. S. 2010. Understanding Sea-Level Rise and Variability. London: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
For example, Slangen, A. B. A., Katsman, C. A., van de Wal, R. S. W., Vermeersen, L. L. A. and Riva, R. E. M. 2012. Towards regional projections of twenty-first century sea-level change based on IPCC SRES scenarios. Climate Dynamics, 38, 1191–1209, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stammer, D. and Gregory, J. 2011. Understanding processes contributing to regional sea level change. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 92(39), 328, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IPCC, 2012. Summary for Policymakers. In Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (eds. Field, C. B., Barros, V., Stocker, T. F. et al.). A Special Report of Working Groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunter, J. 2012. A simple technique for estimating an allowance for uncertain sea-level rise. Climatic Change, 113, 239–252, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barth, M. C. and Titus, J. G. 1984. Greenhouse Effect and Sea Level Rise: A Challenge for this Generation. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Available from .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, C.-C., McCarl, B. and Chang, C.-C. 2011. Climate change, sea level rise and rice: global market implications. Climatic Change, 110(3), 543–560, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The range of impacts of future climate change, including sea level change, is reviewed regularly in detail by the IPCC Working Group II ().
Khan, A. E., Ireson, A., Kovats, S. et al. 2011. Drinking water salinity and maternal health in coastal Bangladesh: implications of climate change. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119, 1328–1332, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1) Bird, E. C. F. 1993. Submerging Coasts: The Effects of a Rising Sea Level on Coastal Environments. Chichester: Wiley. (2) Nicholls, R. J., Wong, P. P., Burkett, V. R. et al. 2007. Coastal systems and low-lying areas. In Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (eds. Parry, M. L., Canziani, O. F., Palutikof, J. P. et al.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ranasinghe, R., Callaghan, D., and Stive, M. J. F. 2012. Estimating coastal recession due to sea level rise: beyond the Bruun rule. Climatic Change, 110, 561–574, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGranahan, G., Balk, D. and Anderson, B. 2007. The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones. Environment and Urbanization, 19, 17–37, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katsman, C. A., Sterl, A., Beersma, J. J. et al. 2011. Exploring high-end scenarios for local sea level rise to develop flood protection strategies for a low-lying delta: the Netherlands as an example. Climatic Change, 109, 617–645, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heberger, M., Cooley, H., Herrera, P., Gleick, P. H. and Moore, E. 2011. Potential impacts of increased coastal flooding in California due to sea-level rise. Climatic Change, 109 (Supplement 1), S229–S249, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plag, H.-P., Tsimplis, M. N., Hammond, W. and Pugh, D. 2006. Appraisal of the Relative Sea Level Rise Scenario for Venice. Final Project Report, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, University of Nevada, Reno, Report NBMG-RP-VEN3.
Lavery, S. and Donovan, B. 2005. Flood risk management in the Thames Estuary looking ahead 100 years. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 363, 1455–1474, .CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, J., Gao, W., Xu, S. and Yu, L. 2012. Evaluation of the combined risk of sea level rise, land subsidence, and storm surges on the coastal areas of Shanghai, China. Climatic Change, 115, 537–558, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, J. L., Overpeck, J. T. and Strauss, B. 2011. Implications of recent sea level rise science for low-elevation areas in coastal cities of the conterminous U.S.A.Climatic Change, 105, 635–645, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, B. H., Ziemlinski, R., Weiss, J. L. and Overpeck, J. T. 2012. Tidally-adjusted estimates of topographic vulnerability to sea level rise and flooding for the contiguous United States. Environmental Research Letters, 7, 014033, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, A. H. and Brunner, R. D. 2007. Context and climate change: an integrated assessment for Barrow, Alaska. Climatic Change, 82, 93–111, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brecht, H., Dasgupta, S., Laplante, B., Murray, S. and Wheeler, D. 2013. Sea-level rise and storm surges: high stakes for a small number of developing countries. The Journal of Environment and Development, 21, 120–138, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See the review by Sir Nicholas Stern of the Economics of Climate Change. 2006.
Blankespoor, B., Susmita, D. and Laplante, B. 2012. Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Wetlands: Impacts and Costs. World Bank Policy Research working paper No. WPS 6277. Available from .
Hansen, J. E. 2007. Scientific reticence and sea level rise. Environmental Research Letters, 2, 024002, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoeke, R. K., McInnes, K. L., Kruger, J. et al. 2013. Widespread inundation of Pacific islands by distant-source wind-waves. Global and Planetary Change, 108, 128–138, .CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×