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Op-Ed: NASA says 91.44cm sea level rise ‘locked in’ by existing warming

The bottom line here is literally a line between predictions and proof. According to NASA, sea level rise since 1992 is 7.6cm, or roughly 3 inches. Over a century, that rate of rise is expected to accelerate, and some predictions are far worse.

NASA’s new monitoring will be carried out by ultra-accurate equipment. The idea is to get down to cases regarding actual sea level rises, which will be a lot more complex, and more demanding in terms of areas of survey, than previous studies.
The new factors in measurement are pretty scary in their own right:
• A large glacial body in Greenland called the Jakobshavn glacier, which could raise sea levels by 6 metres if it melted completely.
• A phenomenon called rather vaguely “marine instability” in Antarctica, which is the process of warm currents acting under the Antarctic ice sheets. Antarctica contains enough water to raise global sea levels dramatically, and quickly. The overall picture is not looking good.
• An interesting if totally un-expectable phenomenon called “sea level fall” in mid-ocean, of all places, which involves cold water differentiating in profile from warmer water. The Gulf Stream, for example, has added to sea level rise on the US east coast, but the sea level has fallen in mid-Atlantic.
The result of rising seas, of course, will have a lot in common with the basic scenarios of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, although that’s only one facet of the overall scenario of global warming. Most of the world lives in cities situated on or near coastal river deltas, etc. Sea level rise could cause a lot of major problems and a need for relocation of large numbers of people.
• The mechanics of sea level rise are explained in the video, but there’s an added factor which needs to be explained – Sea water isn’t just “water”.
• It’s a denser, more complex mix of elements, the entire table of elements, in fact, which is expanding as it warms up.
• This mix also has a complex range of thermal profile dynamics in the way in which it gains and loses heat. It takes more heat to melt sea ice than freshwater ice like glaciers.
• If it can’t lose heat quickly enough, it will continue to expand and gain heat, accelerating ice melting.
• As the water increases in volume, it’s diluted by fresh water, but fresh water also accelerates the melting of ice.
Put it this way –
You don’t need to go to the beach any more.
It will come to you.

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Written By

Editor-at-Large based in Sydney, Australia.

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