<
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/09/climate/sea-level-rise-melting-ice-sheets>
"For around 2,000 years, global sea levels varied little. That changed in the
20th century. They started rising and have not stopped since — and the pace is
accelerating.
Scientists are scrambling to understand what this means for the future just as
President Trump strips back agencies tasked with monitoring the oceans.
Since 1993, satellites have kept careful watch over the world’s oceans,
allowing scientists a clear view of how they are behaving. What they have
revealed is alarming.
Sea level rise was unexpectedly high last year, according to a recent NASA
analysis of satellite data.
More concerning, however, is the longer-term trend. The rate of annual sea
level rise has more than doubled over the past 30 years, resulting in the
global sea level increasing 4 inches since 1993.
“It’s like we’re putting our foot on the gas pedal,” said Benjamin Hamlington,
a research scientist in the Sea Level and Ice Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. While other climate signals fluctuate, global sea level has a
“persistent rise,” he told
CNN.
It spells trouble for the future. Scientists have a good idea how much average
sea level will rise by 2050 — around 6 inches globally, and as much as 10 to 12
inches in the US. Past 2050, however, things get very fuzzy.
“We have such a huge range of uncertainty,” said Dirk Notz, head of sea ice at
the University of Hamburg. “The numbers are just getting higher and higher and
higher very quickly.”
The world could easily see an extra 3 feet of sea level rise by 2100, he told
CNN; it could also take hundreds of years to reach that level. Scientists
simply don’t know enough yet to project what will happen.
What scientists are crystal clear about is the reason for the rise:
human-caused global warming."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
