Sea levels rising far faster than we thought, warns latest study

[link to www.dailymail.co.uk]

The world is changing . low lands are being threatened at an alarming rate!

Dr Rahmstoft and colleagues from the Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS) in France and the U.S. based Tempo Analytics compared climate projections to actual observations from 1990 up to 2011.

Five global land and ocean temperature series were averaged and compared to IPCC projections.
Inexorable rise: Sea level measured by satellite altimeter are shown in red. Data from tide gauges are shown orange. Scenarios as predicted by the IPCC are shown in blue and green

Inexorable rise: Sea level measured by satellite altimeter are shown in red. Data from tide gauges are shown orange. Scenarios as predicted by the IPCC are shown in blue and green

To allow for a more accurate comparison with projections, the scientists accounted for short-term temperature variations due to El Niño events, solar variability and volcanic eruptions.

The results confirmed that global warming continues unabated at a rate of 0.16 °C per decade and follows IPCC projections closely.

Data of sea-level rise, however, provided a different picture. The oceans are rising 60 per cent faster than the IPCC's latest best estimates, according to the new research.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO STOP CLIMATE CHANGE, UN WARNS

Time is running out in the race to cut greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to keep global temperatures rises below 2C this century, the United Nations warns.

Greenhouse gases are being pumped into the atmosphere in such quantities that temperatures are likely to rise at least 3C and up to 5C by 2100 even if government pledges for are kept.

Governments must promise and put into action many more measures than they have already committed to if the world is to keep temperatures rises below 2C, scientists and UN officials said.

The researchers compared those estimates to satellite data of observed sea-level rise and found that while the IPCC projected sea-level rise to be at a rate of 2mm per year, satellite data recorded a rate of 3.2 mm per year.

'Satellites have a much better coverage of the globe than tide gauges and are able to measure much more accurately by using radar waves and their reflection from the sea surface,' explained Anny Cazenave from LEGOS.

The increased rate of sea-level rise is unlikely to be caused by a temporary episode of ice discharge from the ice sheets in Greenland or Antarctica or other internal variabilities in the climate system, according to the study, because it correlates very well with the increase in global temperature.

[link to www.mmegi.bw]

[link to travel.usnews.com]

[link to usahitman.com]