Latest Current sea level rise Stories

Will all of the ice on Greenland melt and flow out into the sea, bringing about a colossal rise in ocean levels on Earth, as the global temperature rises? The key concern is how stable the ice cap actually is and new Danish research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen can now show the evolution of the ice sheet 11,700 years back in time "“ all the way back to the start of our current warm period. The results are published in the esteemed journal Nature.Numerous...

Scientists are trying to determine what occurred in Greenland's history to cause its glaciers to rapidly melt, and what implications it might have for the earth's future in light of looming global warming.In 2005, scientists noticed that Greenland's Helheim Glacier had nearly doubled in speed as it moved through a river at a pace of 100 feet per day.The rapid movement caught researchers by surprise and sparked concerns that it could be a sign of a massive melting of the Greenland's ice sheet...

A new study indicates that Arctic temperatures suddenly increased during the last 50 years of the period from 1 AD to the year 2000. Because this warming occurred abruptly during the 20th Century while atmospheric greenhouse gases were accumulating, these findings provide additional evidence that humans are influencing climate.Incorporating geologic records, biologic records and computer simulations, the study reconstructed Arctic summer temperatures at a resolution down to decades, and...

The conference showed that the Arctic climate is changing rapidly in a number of different ways:The recent rate of decrease in thickness and volume of the Arctic sea ice has been faster than the rate of aerial shrinkage determined from satellites. Given that the present trend of melt continues, some models indicate that it is quite likely that the Arctic Ocean could be ice free in the summer time as early as 2015-16.There has been a rapid increase in the mass-loss from the Greenland ice sheet...

Lakes in Antarctica, concealed under miles of ice, require scientists to come up with creative ways to identify and analyze these hidden features. Now, researchers using space-based lasers on a NASA satellite have created the most comprehensive inventory of lakes that actively drain or fill under Antarctica's ice. They have revealed a continental plumbing system that is more dynamic than scientists thought."Even though Antarctica's ice sheet looks static, the more we watch it, the more...

Experts say one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica is thinning four times faster than it was 10 years ago, BBC News reported.The surface of the ice at the Pine Island glacier in west Antarctica is now dropping at a rate of up to 50 feet a year, according to a recent study of satellite measurements.The work, by British scientists and published in Geophysical Research Letters, shows that the glacier has lowered by almost 300 feet since 1994, which has serious implications for sea-level...

Fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements have been used to place better constraints on future sea level rise, and to test sea level projections.The results are published today in Nature Geoscience and predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be between 7- 82 cm "“ depending on the amount of warming that occurs "“ a figure similar to that projected by the IPCC report of 2007.Placing limits on the amount of sea level rise...

A new study published this week takes scientists a step further in their quest to understand how Antarctica's vast glaciers will contribute to future sea-level rise. Reporting in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and University of Durham describe how a new 3-d map created from radar measurements reveals features in the landscape beneath a vast river of ice, ten times wider than the Rhine*, in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.During 2007, two researchers...

Rising sea-levels could one day leave significant portions of the Florida Keys underwater, experts say. Researcher Evan Flugman said in a Florida International University report the Florida Keys are at the forefront of the emerging threat of rising sea-levels in the southern portion of Florida, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. ''South Florida is on the front line against sea-level rise in the United States, and the Florida Keys are ground zero," Flugman said. The non-profit group Nature...

Extreme weather, drought, heavy rainfall and increasing temperatures are a fact of life in many parts of the U.S. as a result of human-induced climate change, researchers report today in a new assessment. These and other changes will continue and likely increase in intensity into the future, the scientists found.Researchers representing 13 U.S. government science agencies, major universities and research institutes produced the study, "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United...