Caspian Sea of around 149,200 square miles (386,400 square km)— bigger than the region of Japan—and its surface lies somewhere in the range of 90 feet (27 meters) below sea level. The sea bed in the southern part reaches as low as 1,023 m (3,356 ft) below sea level, which is the second lowest natural depression on earth after Lake Baikal (−1,180 m, −3,871 ft). The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness and large size. The sea has a surface area of 371,000 km (143,200 sq mi) (not including the detached
Sea level equation the reference surface gravity, formula_12 is the sea–level Green’s function (dependent upon the formula_13 and formula_14 viscoelastic load–deformation coefficients - LDCs), formula_15 is the ice thickness variation, formula_16 represents the eustatic term (i.e. the ocean–averaged value of formula_2), formula_18 and formula_19 denote spatio-temporal convolutions over the ice- and ocean-covered regions, and the overbar indicates an average over the surface of the oceans that ensures mass conservation. Sea level equation The sea level equation (SLE) is the linear, integral equation that describes the sea-level variations associated with the Glacial Isostatic Adjustement (GIA). The basic idea of the SLE dates back to