Global warming: Sea level may rise 7-82 cm by century-end
New predictions indicate that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be between 7- 82 cm – depending on the amount of warming that occurs. Placing limits on the amount of sea level rise over the next century is one of the most pressing challenges for climate scientists. Dr Mark Siddall from the University of Bristol, together with colleagues from Switzerland and the US, used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct sea level fluctuations in response to changing climate for the past 22,000 years, a period that covers the transition from glacial maximum to the warm Holocene interglacial period. By considering how sea level has responded to temperature since the end of the last glacial period, Siddall and colleagues predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be similar to that projected by the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). According to...