Over the years, the concern about the rising sea level due to climate change has gradually increased. However, the main issue has always been a numeric concern: Just how much will the sea rise? According to EcoWatch, the answer is “at least three feet.” With confirmation of this new insight, scientists at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are now scrambling to uncover when we can expect this rise.
What We Know About The Rising Sea Level
According to NASA, seas around the world have risen an average of 3 inches, or 8 centimeters, since 1992. Although, at face value, this does not sound like a titanic amount, the steady rise foreshadows the unavoidable and possibly disastrous consequences that our planet may not be ready to face.
On Wednesday, August 26, 2015, members of NASA’s Sea Level Change Team discussed the latest research regarding rising sea levels during a media teleconference. When face with the question: “how quickly will seas rise?,” Steve Nerem, the leader of the Sea Level Change Team, stated the following:
“Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it’s pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet [0.9 meter] of sea level rise, and probably more…But we don’t know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer.”
Back in 2013, the the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that global sea levels would rise between 1 to 3 feet (0.3 to 0.9) by the end of the century. Today, the number is much higher than originally anticipated. To add onto the problem, the research data, based on a visualization of 23 years of sea level satellite information, is anything but uniform around the world. The level of sea rise, which can be caused by the expansion of warmer ocean water, ice loss from Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and melting mountain glaciers, isn’t always consistent due to natural and geographical variation.
Sea level along the west coast of the United States, for example, has actually fallen over the past 20 years, stated Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At the moment, East Antarctica also seems to be stable. However, what’s troubling is the fact that even specialists are not conclusive about the future. Glaciologist Eric Rignot sums this prevailing view up when he stated “…we don’t really know.”
Photo via Flickr by Jaime.
