In most coastal regions, the level of the sea is rising in relation to the land by one to two millimeters a year, and this trend would be explained by the hypothesis that at the North and South Poles, the amount of ice that melts during the summer now exceeds the amount forms during the winter. The hypothesis is not undermined by observations that sea levels are falling relative to the Scandinavian coast by four millimeters a year. Much land in northern latitudes, including Scandinavia, is still rising in response to being freed of the enormous weight of the ice that used to cover it during the last ice age, and in Scandinavia the land is now rising faster than the sea.