Christopher Piecuch

AER's Dr. Christopher Piecuch was recently interviewed by NPR on the topic of his sea-level rise research. The full interview can be experienced here: http://news.wgbh.org/2016/12/02/science-and-technology/explaining-sea-level-rise-northeast-presents-scientific-challenge

Sea level changes are a matter of serious concern for coastal communities, effecting recurrent flooding, beach erosion, saltwater intrusion, and wetland loss. Therefore, understanding the causes of past sea level changes, in order to more confidently predict sea level changes in the future, has been a major goal in climate science.

Knowledge of changes in ocean bottom pressure, and their relation to fluctuations in sea surface height, is important for understanding aspects of ocean circulation and climate variability; for example, facilitating estimation of ocean heat content variations and elucidating causes for regional sea level variability. However, historical measurements of bottom pressure have been extremely sparse, limiting observational understanding of the nature of ocean bottom pressure behavior on scales relevant for climate studies.