Sea Level Rise

• Historical sea level data derived from 23 tidegauge measurements. The bottom chart shows the average sea level since 1993 derived from global satellite measurements

• Sea level rise is associated with the thermal expansion of sea water due to climate warming (mostly) and widespread melting of land ice

• Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters in the last century. In the last decade, however, the rate of rise nearly doubled

• Sea level is not rising at the same rate everywhere on the planet. This is due to the complex dynamic effects occurring on the surface of the globe (ex: sea and surface currents, local anomalies, tides, topography ). There can be differences of more then a meter in different areas of the planet (ex: from one side to the other of the pacific ocean during the El Nino anomaly)

• The best current estimate is that the global sea level is presently rising at a rate of 3.4 mm a year and shows signs of increasing

• It is important to understand that these are the current values but that the rate of sea level rise will significantly increase as the global temperature rises

• The current estimates are mostly based on satellite monitoring. However, there are some great concerns from leading scientist and recent studies that these predictions are underestimating the rate of change to come as we still do notfully understand the dynamic of ice stored on the continents andhow it will react to rising temperatures. It appears that ice ismelting from below which cannot be picked up by satellite.

Source of Information : Climate Change: A Silent Threat by Sylvain Richer de Forges

Sea Level Rise