Abstract: The origin of the anomalous global sea level rise (SLR) since the last century is highly controversial and not fully understood. The observed increase of high tides and decrease of low tides in many coastal areas around the world imply that some crucial physical mechanisms that govern the rising sea levels may have been overlooked. The relative contribution of nutation, axial precession, lunar acceleration, Earth’s spin and sea surface temperature on sea level anomaly was estimated using multiple regression. A very high relative contribution of the polar migration (49.4%) on the mean sea level rise, followed by axial precession (46.7%) and a secondary contribution of lunar acceleration (3.9%) was found. Sea surface temperature and earth spin rate showed negative correlations with sea level rise. The annual changes of the polar migration, axial precession and lunar acceleration appear to be the dominant physical mechanisms behind the SLR problem. These factors are largely driven by strong earthquakes. The rising oceanic tides in the last century up to the present is largely due to North Pole migration. Apparently, the observed nutation and axial precession are caused by the increased eccentricity of the lunar orbit through changes in the lunar distance and lunar acceleration. Finally, the observed SLR was found to be related to the enigmatic 26-second microseism problem. Using the annual geomagnetic North Pole migration dataset of NOAA-NGDC, the observed frequency of 0.038 Hz was found. This possibly indicates that the planet is gradually tilting as it spins with a concomitant gradual build-up of oceanic pressure and release of magmatic and gas pressure, due to lunar-induced sea level rise and reduced lunar distance.

Keywords: Sea Level Rise, Nutation and Precession, North Pole migration, 26-sec microseism

Pages: 311-321

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