“With 2024 as the warmest year on record, Earth’s expanding oceans are following suit, reaching their highest levels in three decades”, NASA’s Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, head of physical oceanography programmes and the Integrated Earth System Observatory, said on Thursday.
Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA, said the rise in the world’s oceans last year was “higher than expected”, and while changes take place each year, what has become clear is that the “rate of rise is getting faster and faster”.
According to the NASA-led study of the information sourced via the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, the rate of sea level rise last year was 0.59cm (0.23 inches) per year – higher than an initial expected estimate of 0.43cm (0.17 inches) per year.
The global sea level rose faster than expected in 2024, according to a NASA-led analysis. Read more: https://t.co/G85GAGlUKM pic. twitter.com/UYIFC6Ssou
Satellite recordings of ocean height started in 1993, and in the three decades up to 2023, the rate of sea level rise has more than doubled, with average sea levels around the globe rising by 10cm (3.93 inches) in total, according to NASA.
Rising sea levels are among the consequences of human-induced climate change, and oceans have risen in line with the increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature – a change which itself is caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
NASA said trends from recent years showed additional water from land due to melting ice sheets and glaciers to be the biggest contributor, accounting for two-thirds of sea level rise.
In 2024, however, the increased rise in sea levels was largely driven by the thermal expansion of water – when ocean water expands as it warms – which accounts for about two-thirds of the increase.
Source: Aljazeera
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