Lim, C.; Park, S.-H.; Kim, D.-Y.; Woo, S.-B., and Jeong, K.-Y., 2017. Influence of steric effect on the rapid sea level rise at Jeju Island, Korea. In: Lee, J.L.; Griffiths, T.; Lotan, A.; Suh, K.-S., and Lee, J. (eds.), The 2nd International Water Safety Symposium. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 79, pp. 189–193. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

According to a report by the Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency (KHOA), the sea level rise in west coast (1.31 mm/yr), east coast (2.69 mm/yr) and south coast (2.05 mm/yr) of Korea are different. Especially, the seas around Jeju Island show one of the most rapid increase of sea level rise in recent years. This investigation on the data from Jeju and Seogwipo tidal station indicated that the sea level rises around Jeju and near Seogwipo were 5.63 mm/yr and 3.75 mm/yr, respectively. This shows that the northern and southern parts of the island have different temporal rates of sea level rise. The purpose of this research is to analyze the influence of the steric effect caused by density change in the water to the rate of sea level rise, by using sea temperature and salinity data measured by the National Institute of Fisheries Science (NIFS). It is found that the trend of seawater density variation near Jeju Island changed by the time of around 2006 and so does the sea level rise, indicating that there is a meaningful correlation between sea level rise and density variation. The rate of steric height rise by the density were calculated, resulting in a 15.8% and 23.2% of sea level rise in Jeju and Seogwipo, respectively.