SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Photo: NASA/Saskia Madlener
NASA: World 'Locked Into' at Least 3 Feet of Sea Level Rise
Current satellite data reveals that glaciers 'might not be as stable as we once thought'
Aug 26, 2015
New research underway indicates that at least three feet of global sea level rise is near certain, NASA scientists warned Wednesday.
That's the higher range of the 1 to 3 feet level of rise the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave in its 2013 assessment.
Sea levels have risen 3 inches on average since 1992, with some areas experiencing as much as a 9-inch rise.
"Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it's pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more," said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead of NASA's interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team. "But we don't know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer."
The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more to sea level rise, losing an average of 303 gigatons of ice per year over the past decade, while the Antarctic ice sheet has lost an average of 118 gigatons per year. However, scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, warned last year that glaciers in the West Antarctic "have passed the point of no return."
Glaciologist Eric Rignot of UC-Irvine and NASA's JPL and the lead author of the West Antarctic study stated Wednesday that East Antarctica's ice sheet remains a wildcard.
"The prevailing view among specialists has been that East Antarctica is stable, but we don't know," Rignot stated. "Some signs we see in the satellite data right now are red flags that these glaciers might not be as stable as we once thought."
They say exactly how much of a rise will happen and when it is uncertain. "We've seen from the paleoclimate record that sea level rise of as much as 10 feet in a century or two is possible if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly," said Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We're seeing evidence that the ice sheets are waking up, but we need to understand them better before we can say we're in a new era of rapid ice loss."
On January 20th, it begins...
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. Our Year-End campaign is our most important fundraiser of the year. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
climate changeclimate emergencyglaciersgreenland ice sheetintergovernmental panel on climate changeipccipcc reportnasaoceanssea level rise
New research underway indicates that at least three feet of global sea level rise is near certain, NASA scientists warned Wednesday.
That's the higher range of the 1 to 3 feet level of rise the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave in its 2013 assessment.
Sea levels have risen 3 inches on average since 1992, with some areas experiencing as much as a 9-inch rise.
"Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it's pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more," said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead of NASA's interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team. "But we don't know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer."
The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more to sea level rise, losing an average of 303 gigatons of ice per year over the past decade, while the Antarctic ice sheet has lost an average of 118 gigatons per year. However, scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, warned last year that glaciers in the West Antarctic "have passed the point of no return."
Glaciologist Eric Rignot of UC-Irvine and NASA's JPL and the lead author of the West Antarctic study stated Wednesday that East Antarctica's ice sheet remains a wildcard.
"The prevailing view among specialists has been that East Antarctica is stable, but we don't know," Rignot stated. "Some signs we see in the satellite data right now are red flags that these glaciers might not be as stable as we once thought."
They say exactly how much of a rise will happen and when it is uncertain. "We've seen from the paleoclimate record that sea level rise of as much as 10 feet in a century or two is possible if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly," said Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We're seeing evidence that the ice sheets are waking up, but we need to understand them better before we can say we're in a new era of rapid ice loss."
New research underway indicates that at least three feet of global sea level rise is near certain, NASA scientists warned Wednesday.
That's the higher range of the 1 to 3 feet level of rise the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave in its 2013 assessment.
Sea levels have risen 3 inches on average since 1992, with some areas experiencing as much as a 9-inch rise.
"Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it's pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more," said Steve Nerem of the University of Colorado, Boulder, and lead of NASA's interdisciplinary Sea Level Change Team. "But we don't know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer."
The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more to sea level rise, losing an average of 303 gigatons of ice per year over the past decade, while the Antarctic ice sheet has lost an average of 118 gigatons per year. However, scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, warned last year that glaciers in the West Antarctic "have passed the point of no return."
Glaciologist Eric Rignot of UC-Irvine and NASA's JPL and the lead author of the West Antarctic study stated Wednesday that East Antarctica's ice sheet remains a wildcard.
"The prevailing view among specialists has been that East Antarctica is stable, but we don't know," Rignot stated. "Some signs we see in the satellite data right now are red flags that these glaciers might not be as stable as we once thought."
They say exactly how much of a rise will happen and when it is uncertain. "We've seen from the paleoclimate record that sea level rise of as much as 10 feet in a century or two is possible if the ice sheets fall apart rapidly," said Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We're seeing evidence that the ice sheets are waking up, but we need to understand them better before we can say we're in a new era of rapid ice loss."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.