Fascinating Sea Level Rise Facts

Did You Know the Following Fascinating Sea Level Rise Facts?

  1. The burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases that trap energy from the sun in the atmosphere, which is causing the atmosphere and oceans to heat up.
  2. As the atmosphere warms, ice and snow in Greenland and Antarctica melt at an ever-quickening pace. The meltwater runs off into the oceans, causing them to rise.
  3. The oceans are also warming. The heat they store causes them to expand, which contributes to higher seas.
  4. Natural sea level rise has been occurring at a slow pace since the last ice age ended about 20,000 years ago, but it has picked up speed since humans began burning fossil fuels — like coal, oil and natural gas — at an ever-quickening pace.
  5. 97 percent of climate scientists agree climate warming is extremely likely due to human activities. NASA
  6. Nine out of the ten warmest years on record for Earth have been recorded since 2005. NOAA
  7. A water gage in Manhattan’s Battery Park has recorded nearly one foot of sea level rise in the last 100 years. Currently, seas are rising at just over a tenth of an inch a year at that location. NOAA
  8. The rate of sea level rise from 2006 to 2016 was two-and-a-half times faster than it was in the last century. United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
  9. Sea level rise forecasts are being constantly revised — usually with seas expected to rise faster and faster. The latest report estimates that sea level could rise over 6 1/2 feet in this century alone. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  10. Hundreds of millions of people in coastal cities and towns worldwide are at risk of being displaced by sea level rise during this century. Nature Communications
  11. In the U.S. alone, 300,000 coastal homes with a market value over $117 billion are at risk of chronic flooding by 2045. Union of Concerned Scientists
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