While scientists have grown more confident about projections of sea level rise for the next few decades, many competing factors make it hard to see far into the coastal future.
A hazy plume drifted over the northern end of the Caspian Sea in early April 2008. The translucent plume swirling over the water contrasts with the nearby opaque white clouds. The plume might result partly from smoke from springtime agricultural fires in farmland north of the sea.
The arrow-shaped island in the Aral Sea used to be a 35-kilometer-long visual marker, indicating the Aral Sea to astronauts. An image from the present International Space Station increment shows how much the coastline has changed as the sea level has dropped during the last three decades.