Understanding Sea Level Rise 6: SLR benefits of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees (IPCC & Pattyn)

If you do one about agriculture, you gotta do one for your sea level rise series too, we heard you say.

Isostatic rebound Amundsen Bay: a negative feedback that acts on West Antarctic grounding line retreat

In our series ‘Understanding Sea Level Rise’ we’ve paid ample attention to positive melting feedbacks, mechanisms that accelerate ice melt and ice sheet dynamics as global temperatures keep rising. Now of course there are also negative feedbacks, like local relative … Continue reading

Understanding Sea Level Rise, p4: ice sheet dynamics and (13) melting feedbacks – a background to 21st century SLR acceleration

In 2016 two influential new publications raised the possibility of a rapid acceleration of sea level rise in the 21st century – to ±2 metres (DeConto & Pollard) or more (2-5m, Hansen et al). In this background article we take … Continue reading

Understanding Sea Level Rise, p3: it’s about timescales, speed of change & carbon budget – world aims for 29-55m sea level rise

In our previous article of the series we’ve looked at an overview of global sea level rise forecasts for the year 2100 – and seen that these forecasts have a very large spread, and also seem to increase with time … Continue reading

Understanding Sea Level Rise, p2: A short chronology of SLR forecasts for the year 2100 (showing they increase with time)

Sea level rise is a slow process. Other consequences of climate change are generally felt much sooner. But there is something odd about the forecasts. They seem to be catching up with us, bringing a distant future closer to our … Continue reading

Understanding Sea Level Rise, part 1: Thermal Expansion – a Physical Foundation of several metres, irrespective of ice melting

In between our series about the global temperature trend and our (upcoming) series about climate & biodiversity, let’s do a short series about sea level rise, shall we?

North Africa to lose another breadbasket due to climate change – Egypt’s Nile Delta dries out and submerges simultaneously, millions of migrants likely

Climate change not only causes decreased agricultural production due to droughts and desertification in Mediterranean North Africa and the ‘Fertile Crescent’ of the Middle East – it will also cost the region several thousands square kilometers of its most productive … Continue reading

2015 El Niño produces new climate record: 3 simultaneous Pacific category 4 hurricanes

Small Island States don’t (yet*) make global headlines, but this NASA picture shows a new Pacific climate record, which has a story for us all.

Global ocean temperatures have been rising for at least a century

Locations of Argo's ocean-profiling robots

The location of Argo's 3,500 ocean-profiling robots in the world's oceans. (Credit: Image courtesy of Scripps Institute of Oceanography)

A new study contrasting ocean temperature readings of the 1870s with temperatures of the modern seas reveals an upward trend of global ocean warming spanning at least 100 years.

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