LONDON: Here’s one trend California is behind on: rising sea levels. For the last 23 years, ocean levels around the world have climbed by about 3 inches on average, and NASA scientists say the sea will continue to rise as warming temperatures cause ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica to melt.
But California, and the rest of the western United States, has actually seen ocean levels fall. That’s about to change, thanks to a shift in weather patterns, and scientists are sounding the alarm.
New satellite measurements from NASA suggest that ocean levels could rise by 3 feet or more globally by the end of the century. The question faced by scientists and policymakers is not whether oceans will rise, but how fast and by how much.
“People need to be prepared for sea level rise,” said Joshua Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. “It’s not going to stop.”
If ocean levels are rising, where is the additional water coming from?
Steve Nerem, a scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said that about one-third of the rising sea level is a result of the ocean expanding as it absorbs heat trapped by greenhouse gases and becomes warmer. Another third comes from melting glaciers, and the rest comes from the melting of enormous ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
How much ice is actually melting in Greenland and Antarctica?
During the last decade, Greenland’s ice sheet lost about 303 gigatons of ice on average each year, while Antarctica’s ice sheet lost about 118 gigatons annually on average. One gigaton is a billion metric tons.
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