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Sea levels rising faster than UN estimates: study
Source: Agencies |
November 29, 2012, Thursday
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SEA levels are rising 60 percent faster than UN projections, threatening low-lying areas from Miami to the Maldives, a study said yesterday.
The report, issued during UN talks in Qatar on combating climate change, also said temperatures were creeping higher in line with UN scenarios, rejecting hopes the rate had been exaggerated.
"Global warming has not slowed down, (nor is it) lagging behind the projections," said Stefan Rahmstorf, lead author at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that compared UN projections to what has actually happened from the early 1990s to 2011.
The study said sea levels had been rising by 3.2 millimeters a year according to satellite data, 60 percent faster than the 2 mm annual rise projected by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over that period.
"This suggests that IPCC sea-level projections for the future may also be biased low," the authors from Germany, France and the US wrote in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
The IPCC's latest report in 2007 said seas could rise by between 18 and 59 cm this century, not counting a possible acceleration of the melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that could add more still water to the oceans.
In the last century, seas rose by about 17 cm.
Rahmstorf said his best estimate for sea level rise was between 50 cm and 1 meter this century, possibly more if greenhouse gas emissions surged. Higher temperatures would melt more ice on land and expand the water in the oceans.
That would leave low-lying regions - from Pacific island states and Bangladesh to Tokyo and New York - facing a greater risk of storm surges, erosion and, in a worst case scenario, complete swamping by flood waters.
The IPCC was criticized after it had to correct parts of its 2007 report that exaggerated the rate of melt of Himalayan glaciers and wrongly said they might vanish by 2035.
People skeptical that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are stoking climate change also wonder if warming has flattened out. They note that 1998, 2005 and 2010 are tied as the warmest years since records began in the mid-19th century.
But the study said overall warming was in line with IPCC projections of a gain of 0.16 degree Celsius a decade from 1990 to 2011, after correcting for natural variations caused by volcanic eruptions, El Nino and shifts in the sun's output.
The report, issued during UN talks in Qatar on combating climate change, also said temperatures were creeping higher in line with UN scenarios, rejecting hopes the rate had been exaggerated.
"Global warming has not slowed down, (nor is it) lagging behind the projections," said Stefan Rahmstorf, lead author at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research that compared UN projections to what has actually happened from the early 1990s to 2011.
The study said sea levels had been rising by 3.2 millimeters a year according to satellite data, 60 percent faster than the 2 mm annual rise projected by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) over that period.
"This suggests that IPCC sea-level projections for the future may also be biased low," the authors from Germany, France and the US wrote in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
The IPCC's latest report in 2007 said seas could rise by between 18 and 59 cm this century, not counting a possible acceleration of the melt of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that could add more still water to the oceans.
In the last century, seas rose by about 17 cm.
Rahmstorf said his best estimate for sea level rise was between 50 cm and 1 meter this century, possibly more if greenhouse gas emissions surged. Higher temperatures would melt more ice on land and expand the water in the oceans.
That would leave low-lying regions - from Pacific island states and Bangladesh to Tokyo and New York - facing a greater risk of storm surges, erosion and, in a worst case scenario, complete swamping by flood waters.
The IPCC was criticized after it had to correct parts of its 2007 report that exaggerated the rate of melt of Himalayan glaciers and wrongly said they might vanish by 2035.
People skeptical that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are stoking climate change also wonder if warming has flattened out. They note that 1998, 2005 and 2010 are tied as the warmest years since records began in the mid-19th century.
But the study said overall warming was in line with IPCC projections of a gain of 0.16 degree Celsius a decade from 1990 to 2011, after correcting for natural variations caused by volcanic eruptions, El Nino and shifts in the sun's output.
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