Sea Level Rise May Be Smaller Than Predicted

A new study claims sea level rise this century won't exceed six feet

By Sam Barrett Posted 09.05.2008 at 2:10 pm 6 Comments

Chicago 2025 cikaga jamie (CC Licensed)

A new study released by the University of Colorado at Boulder claims that a global sea rise of more than six feet by the year 2100 is nearly impossible.

The researchers used conservative, medium, and extreme scenarios for Greenland, Antarctica, and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps. Each scenario produced a result from two feet of sea rise to no more than six feet of sea rise. When factoring in thermal expansion due to warming waters, the team concluded that the most plausible scenario would result in a total sea rise of roughly three feet to six feet by 2100.

Last year, scientists at the University of Arizona at Tucson released a study in the journal Science that predicted a catastrophic rise in sea levels of more than nine feet by 2100. The study modeled climate changes from 130,000 years ago to predict future sea level changes. In the modeled era, sea levels rose roughly between nine and 13 feet. The study concluded that sea levels would continue to rise at peak rates of more than three feet per century.

According to the Colorado researchers, the larger predictions in sea level change aren't likely, simply because ice and water do not move that fast. Considering Greenland's contribution to sea level rise alone, glaciers would have to move 70 times faster than they currently do, and that change would have to occur now, not ten years from now.

Still, a rise of even three feet is could be potentially devastating. A rise of two feet would diminish the landmass of the United States by approximately 10,000 square miles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

[Via ScienceDaily]

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6 Comments

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vankrugermeer

09/06/08 at 7:15 am

Interesting article, but regarding that picture "Chicago 2025": I think the sea level rise on Lake Michigan is likely to be negligible no matter how bad global warming gets.

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Dustin2127

09/07/08 at 10:48 am

wow, just as I predicted a year ago. It's so obvious.

Dustin H

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oldsocialworker

09/08/08 at 9:42 pm

Don't tell Al Gore. He'll call for a water tax on those who use more than 16oz of water per day because the global water table is now imperiled. Furthermore, he'll have legions of histrionic lemmings to agree with him.

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laurenra7

09/09/08 at 8:09 pm

The problem with this "good news" is that it's based on re-jiggering computer models which are faulty to begin with. If you do like a good epidemiologist and base your predictions on current MEASURED trends, you will find that you may get a few inches rise in 100 years, but you aren't certain because the average sea level rise over the last 60 years has been around 100 millimeters (4 inches) and it seems to be actually slowing down, which means it may actually reverse over the next 100 years. So it could rise another 4 to 6 inches or not. That's a far cry from 3 feet to 6 feet.

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mioffe_2000

10/24/08 at 7:30 pm

“A new study released by the University of Colorado at Boulder claims that a global sea rise of more than six feet by the year 2100 is nearly impossible.”
I will advise scientists from University of Colorado instead to write Hallowin style article put their efforts to understand reality in global warming. Al Gore is good author but bad scientist. His information about global warming missed a lot of things. You as scientists must knew, what he missed.
Read more:
www.ductworkinstallation.com/EnergySaving/EnvironmentPage/tabid/89/Default.aspx

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ellenbetty

07/04/09 at 10:35 pm

I agree that a edited photo of NY City flooded out would have been a better choice than an edited photo of Chicago flooded out.

The photo shows the author of the article has not done his research well. The Great lakes have lost a foot of water in the past 10 years. The lower level of water reduces the depth of shipping lanes, impacting the economic life of Chicago. All cities along the Great Lakes are facing expensive dredging to keep shipping channels open.

Ellen