TOKYO: In a warming world, we know ocean levels are likely to rise, but just how much?
There’ve been a lot of estimates cited in recent years, based on how rising temperatures are expected to interact with Earth’s current ice caps, but new research published this week attempts to predict the future by looking at the past.
And it doesn’t look good. According to scientists at the University of Florida, the last time global temperatures were this high, the sea levels rose as much as six metres.
“While this amount of sea-level rise will not happen overnight, it is sobering to realize how sensitive the polar ice sheets are to temperatures that we are on path to reach within decades,” lead researcher Andrea Dutton said in a release from the university.
