Rapid Accumulation of Committed Sea-Level Rise from Global Warming
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Material Information

Title:
Rapid Accumulation of Committed Sea-Level Rise from Global Warming
Series Title:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Creator:
Benjamin H. Strauss
Affiliation:
Climate Central
Publication Date:
Language:
English

Notes

Scope and Content:
As carbon emissions and scientific research have accumulated over recent years, climate scientists have come to see global climate change as an increasingly urgent threat (1, 2). In PNAS, Levermann et al. (3) provide a powerful new indicator of danger. When their findings on the long-term sensitivity of global sea level to global warming (∼2.3 m/°C) are put in the context of recent research on the sensitivity of global temperature to cumulative carbon dioxide emissions (4), simple analyses suggest (described below) that we have already committed to a long-term future sea level >1.3 or 1.9 m higher than today and are adding about 0.32 m/decade to the total: 10 times the rate of observed contemporary sea-level rise (5). By midcentury, the central estimate of commitment would rise to >3.1 m assuming today’s trends continue or to 2.1 m under an aggressive emissions cutting and atmospheric carbon dioxide removal scenario. Both scenarios threaten the future viability of many hundreds of coastal municipalities in the United States alone, but the low emissions path would likely spare hundreds more, including many major cities.

Record Information

Source Institution:
Florida International University
Rights Management:
Please contact the owning institution for licensing and permissions. It is the user's responsibility to ensure use does not violate any third party rights.
Resource Identifier:
10.1073 ( doi )

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Aggregations:
Sea Level Rise