Recent study reveals that rise in sea level in the past two decades has elevated faster than estimated which a sign of threat to coasts from Florida to Bangladesh.
The report reassessed the records from 600 tidal gauges; found that readings from the span of 1901 to 1990 had over-estimated the rise in sea levels. Based on the current readings the acceleration since then was far greater than assumed so far.
According to the report the earlier readings were biased by factors such as subsidence.
The new analysis made by Carling Hay, a Canadian scientist at Harvard University and lead author of the study, “suggests that the acceleration in the past two decades is 25 percent higher than previously thought,”
The study said that rise in sea level caused by factors including a thaw of glaciers, averaged about 1.2 millimeters (0.05 inch) a year from 1901-90 – less than past estimates – and leapt to 3 mm a year in the past two decades, apparently linked to a quickening thaw of ice.
Previous year, the calculation made by U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) counts 1.5mm rise in the span of 1901-1990, meaning less of a leap to the recent rate around 3 mm.
The new study might affect the projection of the future pace of sea level rise.
John Church, a top IPCC author at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, told Reuters he did not expect any impact on the IPCC’s core sea level projections, which are not based on past trends.
Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a world expert in past sea levels said that further analysis is required to connect 20th century sea level rise.
The new findings confirm that “sea level is rising and … the rise has accelerated, with the most recent rates being the highest on record,” he told Reuters.
