We Can’t Stop Sea Level Rise—At Least, Not Immediately
The authors found that, in the past century, the seas have been rising at their fastest rate in 3,000 years. Over the last decade, the world’s oceans have risen at a rate of about 4 millimeters per year (1.5 inches per decade). There are two main reasons for this escalation: water expands as it warms, and glaciers and ice sheets are melting into the sea. From Florida to Bangladesh, this has caused untold suffering.
“This sea level rise is already impacting people around the world, and it’s led to a near doubling in the frequency of coastal flooding since the 1960s in many coastal sites around the world,” Bob Kopp, an IPCC co-author and director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, told reporters on Sunday.
One of the IPCC’s most disquieting conclusions is that the sea level rise set in motion by the climate crisis will be irreversible for hundreds to thousands of years. But by urgently phasing out of fossil fuels and drawing down carbon emissions, we can limit the amount the oceans rise and slow the rate at which they do, protecting countless lives.
