Il livello del mare potrebbe crescere di 131 cm alla fine del 2100
Climate change theories have held that oceans are rising as ice melts from mountains and the Earth’s poles, due to humanity’s toll on the environment.
Now a Rutgers team contends the seas are on track to potentially rise more than 4 feet by the year 2100, in a new study in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The trend is relatively recent and dramatic – and caused by humanity, they contend. The study contends the 21st-century rate of sea rise is “extremely likely faster” than any of the preceding 27 centuries.
“To assess the anthropogenic contribution to global sea level rise, we consider two hypothetical global mean temperature scenarios without anthropogenic warming,” write the authors. “Both scenarios show a dominant human influence on 20th century global sea level rise.”
The seas already rose about 14 centimeters over the course of the 20th century, double the rate that would be expected from the natural cycles of the past, the study contends. The analysis included historic sea levels at 24 sites across the world, spanning from New Jersey to South Africa to Israel, to the Cook Islands and Australia.
The 131-centimeter level (more than 4 feet) is the worst-case scenario in one of two models. But the sea-level increase over the course of the 21st century will be at least 24 centimeters under the best-case scenario in the second model, they add.
