Sea level the warmer water expands. For at least the last 100 years, sea level has been rising at an average rate of about per year. Most of this rise can be attributed to the increase in temperature of the sea and the resulting slight thermal expansion of the upper of sea water. Additional contributions, as much as one-quarter of the total, come from water sources on land, such as melting snow and glaciers and extraction of groundwater for irrigation and other agricultural and human uses. Pilots can estimate height above sea level with an altimeter set to a defined barometric pressure.
Sea Level Datum of 1929 The adjustment required a total of 66,315 miles (106,724 km) of leveling with 246 closed circuits and 25 circuits at sea level. Since the Sea Level Datum of 1929 was a hybrid model, it was not a pure model of mean sea level, the geoid, or any other equipotential surface. Therefore, it was renamed the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929 (NGVD 29) in 1973. NGVD29 was superseded by the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88), based upon an equipotential definition and a readjustment, although many cities and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects with established data continued