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 particular location. Sea levels can be affected by many factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, and sea level rise has been widely quoted as evidence of ongoing global warming. The term "above sea level" generally refers to above mean sea level (AMSL). Precise determination of a "mean sea level" is difficult to achieve because of the many factors that affect sea level. Instantaneous sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and space. This is because the