Renewable Revolution

LAST UPDATED ON FEBRUARY 13TH, 2018 AT 5:13 PM BY MIHAI ANDREI

SNIPPET:


A study using satellite data found that not only are sea levels rising — but the rate is accelerating.

Sea levels might be rising two times faster than we thought, a new study suggests.

Steve Nerem, a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder and lead author on the paper, analyzed 25 years of satellite data to calculate how fast sea levels are rising as a result of climate change. He found that sea levels are currently growing by 3 mm/year, but this isn’t a steady growth. The rate is accelerating by 0.08 mm/year every year. It might not seem like much, but it picks up year after year and in the long-term, it can end up making a big difference.

“This acceleration, driven mainly by accelerated melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise by 2100 as compared to projections that assume a constant rate–to more than 60 cm instead of about 30,” said Nerem.

He also says that his models are extremely conservative, as he didn’t consider any major events such as the collapse of important ice sheets or accelerating global warming. This means that in reality, we can probably expect sea levels to grow even more than his predictions.

Full article:

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/sea-level-rise-accelerating-13022018/