Sea levels are rising several times faster than in the past 2,800
years and are accelerating because of man-made global warming, according
to new studies.
An international team of scientists dug into two dozen locations
across the globe to chart gently rising and falling seas over centuries
and millennia. Until the 1880s and the world's industrialisation, the
fastest rise in sea levels was about 3cm to 4cm a century, plus or minus
a bit.
During that time the global sea level really did not get much higher
or lower than 7.62cm above or below the 2,000-year average. But in the
20th century the world's seas rose 14cm.
Since 1993 the rate has soared to 30cm and two different studies,
published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, said that by 2100 the world's oceans would rise between 28
and 131cm, depending on how much heat-trapping gas Earth's industries
and vehicles expel.
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