14 DAY TRIAL // According to the results of a new analysis, it would appear that global sea levels will continue to rise extensively over the next few decades, regardless of whether we stop greenhouse gas emissions or not.
The study is not meant to suggest that no causal link exists between the two, but to highlight that it is already too late to prevent these effects from occurring. Increases in sea levels have been anticipated years ago by climate models.
As politicians are pretending to try to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over the next century, scientists are conducting simulations to determine how the world will look like in the near future, and the emerging image is not pretty.
The image to the left shows the areas that would be affected by a 6-foot (1.8-meter) increase in global sea levels (in red). What researchers found in the new study is that sea levels may increase by more than 70 feet (21.3 meters) over the next century. Imagine how the map will look like then.
A paper published in this week's issue of the esteemed scientific journal Geology suggests that future sea level rises will vary between 40 and 70 feet (12.2 and 21.3 meters). The study was led by Rutgers University expert Kenneth Miller.
The investigation was carried out in Virginia, New Zealand and the Eniwetok Atoll in the north Pacific Ocean, on a series of rock and soil cores that covered a period of time stretching back to the late Pliocene epoch (2.7 million to 3.2 million years ago).
“The difference in water volume released is the equivalent of melting the entire Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, as well as some of the marine margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,” H. Richard Lane explains.
“Such a rise of the modern oceans would swamp the world's coasts and affect as much as 70 percent of the world's population,” he goes on to say.
The scientist holds an appointment as a program director with the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, the organization that sponsored the new investigation.