CAREER: Sea Level and Topographic Evolution (SLATE): Exploring the feedback between sea level and sediment redistribution

海平面的变化引起了广泛的关注，因为它们影响洪水灾害，重组海岸线，影响火山喷发，并反映气候变化。这项拟议的工作将开发一种新的模型，捕捉沉积物再分配和海平面变化对彼此的影响，从而消除理解海平面变化的障碍。这将为理解对大河流附近海平面变化和洪水危险的控制提供新的工具，大河流是许多沿海城市的家园，与NSF的海岸线和人(COP)倡议相关。这些努力将与四项以海平面变化为重点的教育和外展任务相配合，包括开发一门关于海平面变化的新大学课程，对学生进行教学和指导方面的培训，通过威斯康星大学地质博物馆进行公众外展，以及针对STEM中代表性不足群体的K-12学生的五年外展计划。该项目的目标是提高我们对海平面和沉积物再分配之间的反馈的理解。尽管人们早就知道海平面和沉积物再分配是相互影响的，但这种反馈的数量强度仍然是一个有争议的问题。拟议的工作旨在通过开发一种将地球地形演变与海平面变化联系起来的新模型来缩小这一知识差距。这将用于通过量化海平面变化对海洋沉积物输送的敏感性、低地河流对海平面变化的敏感性以及沉积物重新分配对末次间冰期全球平均海平面和全球冰量估计的影响来探索对沉积物-海平面反馈的控制。这将澄清海平面变化对沉积物侵蚀和沉积的敏感性--这是地球海岸的一个共同特征--并为改进对未来海平面变化的预测提供基础。这将通过培训两名博士生，指导本科生，以及一个新的五年外展计划，让STEM中代表性不足的K-12学生参与，来支持教育、外展和多样性倡议。该项目由地貌学和土地利用动力学计划以及海洋地质和地球物理计划共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Sea-level changes are of wide interest because they affect flood hazards, reorganize coastlines, influence volcanic eruptions, and reflect changes in climate. The proposed work will remove a barrier for understanding sea-level change by developing a new model that captures the effects that sediment redistribution and sea-level change have on one another. This will provide a new tool for understanding the controls on sea-level change and flood hazards near large rivers, which are home to many coastal cities, of relevance to NSF’s Coastlines and People (CoPe) initiative. These efforts will be paired with four education and outreach tasks focused on sea-level change, including the development of a new university course on sea-level change, training of students in pedagogy and mentorship, public outreach through the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum, and a five-year outreach program to K-12 students from underrepresented groups in STEM. The goal of this project is to improve our understanding of the feedback between sea level and sediment redistribution. Although it has long been known that sea level and sediment redistribution influence one another, the quantitative strength of this feedback remains a matter of contention. The proposed work is aimed at closing this knowledge gap through the development of a novel model that couples Earth’s topographic evolution to sea-level change. This will be used to explore the controls on the sediment-sea level feedback by quantifying the sensitivity of sea-level changes to marine sediment transport, the sensitivity of lowland rivers to sea-level change, and the effects of sediment redistribution on estimates of global mean sea level and global ice volume at the Last Interglacial period, an analogue for modern climate. This will clarify the sensitivity of sea-level change to sediment erosion and deposition—a common feature of Earth’s coasts—and provide a basis for improving projections of future sea-level change. This will support education, outreach, and diversity initiatives through the training of two PhDs students, the mentoring of undergraduate students, and a new five-year outreach program with K-12 students from underrepresented groups in STEM. The project is co-funded by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics Program and the Marine Geology and Geophysics Program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.