Last year saw an “unexpected” amount of sea level rise around the world, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said Thursday.
An analysis led by the agency found that the rate of rise was nearly a quarter of an inch per year, compared to an expected rate of 0.17 inches.
That’s a concerning statistic considering the hazards rising sea levels bring, including sending potentially deadly storm surge farther inland, threatening urban infrastructure, eroding coastlines and disrupting ecosystems, and resulting in more frequent high-tide flooding.
“The rise we saw in 2024 was higher than we expected,” Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement. “Every year is a little bit different, but what’s clear is that the ocean continues to rise, and the rate of rise is getting faster and faster.”
NASA said the increase was due to an “unusual” amount of ocean warming, as well as an influx of meltwater from glaciers and other land-based ice.
As the Earth warms due to heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, more than 90 percent of that heat is absorbed by oceans. That causes ocean temperatures to rise and the water expands. It’s a process known as “thermal expansion” that contributes to rising sea levels. The planet’s warming has caused roughly a third of the global sea level rise observed by satellite altimeters since 2004.
While thermal expansion was the main cause – and responsible for approximately two-thirds of sea level rise – around a third also came from melting ice sheets and glaciers.
The Antarctica ice sheet is melting at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year, and Greenland’s is losing about 270 billion tons per year, both adding to sea level rise. The Greenland ice sheet’s loss is equivalent to the weight of 26,000 Eiffel Towers, according to Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
If all glaciers and ice sheets melted, global sea level would rise by more than 195 feet, a height just over 10 feet taller than the Space Shuttle.
Warming resulting in these processes has only gotten more severe in recent years. Last year was also determined to be the warmest year on record, with global temperatures 2.3 degrees above NASA’s 20th-century average from 1951 to 1980.
“With 2024 as the warmest year on record, Earth’s expanding oceans are following suit, reaching their highest levels in three decades,” Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, the head of physical oceanography programs and the Integrated Earth System Observatory at NASA Headquarters, said.
Continual increases are likely to result in a worrying future without massive action to stop greenhouse gas emissions. The non-profit group Climate Central estimates than more than four million acres of U.S. properties are projected to be at least partly below tide lines by 2050.
Source: independent.co.uk
