Ecoinformatics Problems of Global Climate Change - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 391

Fig. 5.10 Changes of the global mean sea level in time

Fig. 5.11 Observed rate of sea-level rise (red) compared with reconstructed sea level calculated
from global temperature (dark blue with light blue uncertainty range). Grey line is reconstructed
sea level from an earlier, simpler relationship between sea level and temperature (Vermeer and
Rahmstor 2009)

1950 and 1990 exceeded, at least, by an order of magnitude, the increase of the heat
content in other components of the climate system. While the observed increase of
the ocean heat content between 1955 and 1996 reached 18.2

10 22 J, then for the

×

10 21 J. As for the values of latent heat due to
water phase transformations, they were: 8.1

atmosphere it constituted only 6.6 ×

10 21 × J (a decrease of the mass of

10 21

glaciers on land); 3.2 × J (a decrease of the sea ice cover extent in the

10 21 J (melting of mountain glaciers); 4.6 10 19 J (a decrease of

Antarctic); 1.1 × ×

10 19

the snow cover extent in the Northern Hemisphere); 2.4 × J (melting of

permafrost in the Arctic).