Global Sea Levels Up More Than An Inch In Ten Years - KRT

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - "Melting ice and warming waters have raised average sea levels worldwide by more than an inch since 1995, new data from space satellites and robotic submarines have revealed. That's twice as fast as the rate the oceans rose during the previous 50 years, ocean experts said Thursday. If the current rate continues or accelerates, as they say is likely, the world's seas will rise at least a foot by the end of this century, causing widespread flooding and erosion of islands and low-lying coastal areas.

"Even a small change will matter to a whole lot of coastal people," said Richard Alley, a geoscientist at Pennsylvania State University in State College. "If 15 percent of Greenland ice sheet were to melt, much of South Florida would be underwater." More than half the sea rise was caused by a recent speedup in the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, especially in Greenland and Antarctica, according to Laury Miller, the chief of the Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Many of us have been quite surprised at how rapidly that melting has occurred," Alley said.

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Glaciers in Alaska and South America "are shrinking faster now than 10 years ago, and two to three times faster than they did over the last century," Rignot said. Mountain glaciers in Europe, Asia and Africa also are contracting rapidly. Even more dramatic melting is going on in the much larger glaciers and ice sheets of Antarctica. Three years ago, a chunk of ice as large as Rhode Island collapsed off the coast of the frozen continent. Particularly worrisome is an area called Pine Island Bay. "There's enough ice in that sector alone to raise the sea level by 1 full meter," or 39 inches, Rignot said.

The remaining increase in sea level is mostly the result of higher water temperatures, because water naturally expands as it gets warmer. The sea rise "amounts to about a half of an inch in the past decade due just to ocean warming," (ed. - NOAA Altimetry lab chief Laury) Miller said. Ocean warming is a slow process, and its effects are just beginning to be felt. "It takes a long time for that heat to kick in," Miller said. "We haven't seen all of that yet."

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http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/politics/12087341.htm

[opihimoimoi]

1. Rush and Bush oughta get an earfull fo this

Idiots both....

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. We're gonna have to dig an awful lot of lakes..... gonna need someplace

to put all of that...

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Twice? Only twice?

I was under the impression that the oceans hadn't risen at all before 1985 or so -- in fact, there was some concern about the ocean level going down after a decade-long coolish phase.

--p!