RISE IN SEA LEVEL

Around the globe, sea level is more than 6 inches higher than it was 100 years ago, due primarily to warmer sea water and runoff from melting glaciers. The rate of rise is now 12 inches per century and increasing. The IPCC projected in its 2007 report a sea level up to 2 feet higher by 2100. However, leading glaciologists have long maintained that accepted estimates of sea level rise were underestimated, due to the rapid retreat of mountain glaciers and the unpredictable change to ice caps in Greenland and West Antarctica. Studies released in 2008 and 2009 using various satellite sensors of the sea surface plus estimates of continuing ice cap and glacier melt indicate sea level will be three feet or more higher by the end of the century.