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 rise literature found estimates for the Greenland ice sheet and its glaciers and ice caps, they were the largest contributor to the observed sea level rise from "land ice" sources (excluding thermal expansion), combined accounting for 71 percent, or 1.32 mm per year during the 2012–2016 period. Mountain glaciers include only a minor fraction of all water bound up in glaciers ice (<1%), compared to a bigger portion in Greenland and Antarctica (99%). Still, mountain glaciers have contributed appreciably to historical sea level rise and are set to contribute a smaller, but still significant fraction of sea level rise in the