Sea Level Rise Is On the Up and Up

Sea level rise is a game of millimeters a year, but those millimeters add up to a huge amount of water entering the world’s oceans.  And the rising tide could eventually swamp cities around the globe.

With tide gauges distributed sparsely around the planet, scientists have turned to satellites to provide a global picture of sea level since the early 1990s.  New research published ... in Nature Climate Change refines those satellite estimates and provides some good and bad news.  The good news?  Total sea level rise is lower than previous estimates.  The bad news?  Sea level rise rates are speeding up.

Christopher Watson, a geodesist from the University of Tasmania, led the latest round of research that adjusts satellite readings taken from hundreds of miles above the Earth to measure small changes in sea level heights around the globe since the early 1990s.

“What’s striking is its (the study’s) consistency with future projections of sea level in the IPCC,” Watson said.  “Those estimates state that there could be up to 98 centimeters (39 inches) of sea level rise by 2100.  We’re certainly tracking on that upper bound of the IPCC projection and that projection to 2100 has significant impacts.”

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