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SCIENCETuesday 23 February 2016
Seas are rising way faster than any time in past 2,800 years
SETH BORENSTEIN tionship between sea level
AP Science Writer and temperature,” Horton
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sea said. “I wish there wasn’t,
levels on Earth are rising then we wouldn’t be as
several times faster than worried.”
they have in the past 2,800 The link to temperature is
years and are accelerat- basic science, the study’s
ing because of man-made authors said. Warm water
global warming, according expands. Cold water con-
to new studies. tracts. The scientists pointed
An international team to specific past eras when
of scientists dug into two temperatures and sea rose
dozen locations across the and fell together.
globe to chart gently rising
and falling seas over cen- In this Oct. 31, 2012 file photo, a view from the air shows the destroyed homes left in the wake of The Kopp study and a sep-
turies and millennia. Until Superstorm Sandy in Ortley Beach, N.J. arate one published by
the 1880s and the world’s another team projected
industrialization, the fastest Associated Press future sea level rise based
seas rose was about 1 to 1.5 on various techniques.
inches (3 to 4 centimeters) planetary sciencesprofes- used single cell organisms century is mostly man- They came to the same
a century, plus or minus a general estimates, despite
bit. During that time global sor Bob Kopp, lead author that are sensitive to salin- made, the study authors using different methods,
sea level really didn’t get said Anders Levermann, a
much higher or lower than of the study that looked ity, mangroves, coral, sedi- said. A separate, not-yet- co-author of the second
3 inches above or below paper and a researcher at
the 2,000-year average. back at sea levels over the ments and other clues in published study by Kopp the Potsdam Institute.
But in the 20th century the If greenhouse gas pollution
world’s seas rose 5.5 inch- past three millennia. “It’s cores, Horton said. On top and others found since continues at the current
es (14 centimeters). Since pace, both studies project
1993 the rate has soared to because of the tempera- of that they checked their 1950, about two-thirds of increases of about 22 to 52
a foot per century (30 cen- inches (57 to 131 centime-
timeters). And two different ture increase in the 20th figures by easy markers the U.S. nuisance coastal ters). If countries fulfill the
studies published Monday treaty agreed upon last
in the journal Proceedings century which has been such as the rise of lead with floods in 27 locales have year in Paris and limit fur-
of the National Academy ther warming to another
of Sciences, said by 2100 driven by fossil fuel use.” the start of the industrial the fingerprints of man- 2 degrees Fahrenheit, sea
that the world’s oceans will level rise would be in the 11
rise between 11 to 52 inch- To figure out past sea lev- age and isotopes only seen made warming. to 22 inch range (28 to 56
es (28 to 131 centimeters), centimeters).
depending on how much els and rates of rise and in the atomic age. And if seas continue to Jonathan Overpeck at the
heat-trapping gas Earth’s University of Arizona, who
industries and vehicles ex- fall, scientists engaged in rise, as projected, another wasn’t part of the studies,
pel. praised them, saying they
“There’s no question that a “geological detective When Kopp and colleagues 18 inches (45 centimeters) show a clear cause and
the 20th century is the fast- effect between warming
est,” said Rutgers earth and story,” said study co-author charted the sea level rise of sea level rise is going and sea level rise.q
Ben Horton, a Rutgers ma- over the centuries — they to cause lots of problems
rine scientist. They went went back 3,000 years, but and expense, especially
around the world looking aren’t confident in the most with surge during storms,
at salt marshes and oth- distant 200 years — they said study co-author Stefan
er coastal locations and saw Earth’s sea level was Rahmstorf of the Potsdam
used different clues to fig- on a downward trend until Institute for Climate Impact
ure out what the sea level the industrial age. Research in Germany.
was at different times. They Sea level rise in the 20th “There is such a tight rela-
