Seas to Rise Faster This Century

According to a report made by some researchers,while tropical cyclones have been intensifying over the past few decades, it seems that global warming will cause sea levels to rise much faster by the end of the century. The rising temperatures will cause the oceans to swell with melted glacial ice, the study finds, likely flooding substantial portions of Florida and Bangladesh, as well as many other low-lying, densely populated areas of the world.

There are two main ways in which warming glaciers raise sea level, they add more water as they melt and they also add water when ice breaks off from glacial flows. The incidence of this latter phenomenon has soared in recent years for some glaciers draining the southern Greenland Ice Sheet, much to the mystification of glaciologists. Unable to model such accelerated ice losses, members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declined to include them in their widely cited projection of up to 60 centimeters of sea level rise by 2100.

The new, higher sea level rise “is a useful number,” says glaciologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University in State College. “It’s a reality check.” Geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University agrees. “Where these guys end up is plausible.” Even 1 meter of sea level rise “is a big deal,” he notes, as it would threaten people in many parts of the world.