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Global sea level rise accelerates since 1990, study shows<br />
The rise in global sea levels has accelerated since the 1990s amid rising temperatures, with a<br />
thaw of Greenland’s ice sheet pouring ever more water into the oceans, scientists said.<br />
The annual rate of sea level rise increased to 3.3 millimetres (0.13 inch) in 2014 – a rate of 33<br />
centimetres (13 inches) if kept unchanged for a century – from 2.2 mm in 1993, according<br />
to a team of scientists in China, Australia and the United States.<br />
Sea levels have risen by about 20 cms in the past century and many scientific studies project<br />
a steady acceleration this century as man-made global warming melts more ice on land.<br />
Until now, however, scientists have found it hard to detect whether the rate has picked up, is flat<br />
or has fallen since 1990. The study found that early satellite data had exaggerated the rate of sea<br />
level rise in the 1990s, masking the recent acceleration.<br />
The confirmation of a quickening rise “highlights the importance and urgency” of working out ways<br />
to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to protect low-lying coasts, the scientists wrote in the<br />
journal Nature Climate Change.<br />
A thaw of Greenland’s ice sheet accounted for more than 25 percent of the sea level rise in 2014<br />
against just 5 percent in 1993, according to the study led by Xianyao Chen of the Ocean<br />
University of China and Qingdao National Laboratory of Marine Science and Technology.<br />
Other big sources include loss of glaciers from the Himalayas to the Andes, Antarctica’s ice sheet<br />
and a natural expansion of ocean water as it warms up from its most dense at 4 degrees Celsius<br />
(39.2°F).<br />
A U.N. panel of climate scientists said in 2014 that sea levels could rise by up to about a metre by<br />
2100.<br />
Several climate experts who were not involved in the study welcomed the findings.<br />
“This is a major warning to us about the dangers of a sea level rise that will continue for many<br />
centuries even after global warming is stopped,” Peter Wadhams, of the University of Cambridge,<br />
said in a statement.<br />
“A big question in climate science has been whether the rise in global sea level rise is<br />
accelerating. Now there is strong evidence that this is indeed the case,” said Brian Hoskins of<br />
Imperial College, London.<br />
A rise in sea levels will threaten low-lying coasts from Miami to Bangladesh, cities from Shanghai<br />
to San Francisco and small island states such as Tuvalu in the Pacific.