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Educate yourself. Watch trustworthy documentaries. Read articles with .org, .edu, .gov. Gather as much truthful knowledge on the subject you can. Also, educate others, your friends and family. It may sound like a boring subject but it could be one of the most important. For changing things in your daily: change at least 5 of your oldest light bulbs in your house to lightbulbs with EPA's Energy Star label. Ask your parents about switching to green power (solar, hydro, and wind power) if you haven't already. Take public transport to school. If you live close enough, walk or bike to school. Take the bus instead of getting a ride just from, your parent. Do what you can to reduce the amount of times you have to use a car with just one person.

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Climate change isn't something in the far-off future: It's a potentially disastrous reality that's already starting to have effects that are expected to worsen, experts say.

Longer summers and heavier rainfalls are some of the impacts Americans are already seeing, according to the National Climate Assessment. We should expect more flooding, wildfires and drought.

The report, a new White House update released Tuesday, calls for urgent action on climate change.

So what can you do at home to take action?

The most powerful way that the average person can combat climate change is to become informed about it, says J. Marshall Shepherd, former president of the American Meteorological Society and professor at the University of Georgia.

"Obviously, it makes sense for people to be as efficient and green as possible in their thinking on a day-to-day basis," he said. "But where I think the biggest impact that individuals can have is: Becoming climate literate."

If you educate yourself about what's going on with climate change and what can be done about it, you can make more informed choices when it comes time to vote for the people with the power to make big decisions.

"Where the biggest impacts on our planet will be, will come from large-scale policy changes and solutions that are influenced by who's in office," he said.

Only read trusted and verified sources of information about climate change, Shepherd said. He recommends the websites climate.gov and Climate Central (of which he is a board member) for essential facts and resources.

Learn about various responses to climate change that policy makers are discussing:

-- Mitigation means lowering carbon dioxide levels -- for instance, by instituting carbon taxes or taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

-- Adaptation means responding to the consequences of climate change -- for instance, building seawalls to prepare for rising sea levels around vulnerable cities.

-- Geoengineering means changing the Earth itself to counteract climate change -- which would include hypothetical technological interventions such as putting large mirrors in space or changing our oceans to absorb more carbon dioxide, Shepherd said.

Beyond reading up on the issues, you can still do a small part to influence the big environmental picture.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lists steps to limiting your greenhouse gas emissions, which would also save you money. These include:

-- Changing your five most-used light fixtures or bulbs to products that have the EPA's Energy Star label;

-- Heat and cool more efficiently, such as by using a programmable thermostat, changing air filters and replacing old equipment with Energy Star products;

-- Seal and insulate your home;

-- Make use of recycling programs, and compost food and yard waste;

--Use green power, such as solar panels;

--Estimate how much greenhouse gas you emit with the EPA's calculator.

Check out clean energy resources and financial incentives in your area through the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficienc y.
3. Be greener at the office
If you have a desk job, there are plenty of things you can do to reduce your emissions while at work. The EPA advises:

-- Set computers and other office equipment to power down during periods when you're not using them;

-- Use Energy Star equipment;

-- Recycle and reuse whenever possible;

The David Suzuki Foundation, an environmental nonprofit organization, additionally recommends using video conferencing to reduce air travel for business.
4. Reduce emissions in transit
Whether it's taking a vacation or doing your daily commute, you can reduce your carbon footprint in simple ways that also save money. The EPA's recommendations include:

-- Rely on public transportation, biking, walking, carpooling or telecommuting instead of driving;

-- Use the EPA's Green Vehicle Guide to help you make an informed choice about buying a car;

-- While driving, try not to do hard accelerations, don't spend more than 30 seconds idling, and go easy on the gas pedal and brakes;

-- Make sure to regularly check your tire pressure.

When you have to take an airplane, the David Suzuki Foundation recommends:

-- When flying, consider packing lighter because less fuel is consumed with less weight on the plane;

-- Fly during the day because night flights have a bigger impact on climate;

-- Buy carbon offsets -- or credits -- to compensate for the emissions on your flight .
5. Get involved and educate others about the big picture
Your green strategies in your daily life can have a small impact, but the whole planet has to be on board for dealing with climate change in order to instigate global effects. Even if everyone in the United States reduced their emissions, other countries that continue to dump carbon dioxide into the air would still contribute to warming temperatures and rising sea levels.

Spread the word about climate change and educating people. The EPA recommends that students give presentations on climate change and encourage their institutions to increase energy efficiency.

Find out if your community has a climate action plan. There may be ways you can contribute to local efforts to be greener and adapt to potential changes that a warming world would bring.

Bottom line: Most of the public will never read the full National Climate Assessment, Shepherd said. But if you arm yourself with correct information, you can make informed choices that could affect your community and the planet at large.

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5 things you can do about climate change - cnn.com

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5 things you can do about climate change

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Climate change isn't something in the far-off future: It's a potentially disastrous reality that's already starting to have effects that are expected to worsen, experts say. Longer summers and heavier rainfalls are some of the impacts Americans are already seeing, according to the National Climate Assessment. We should expect more flooding, wildfires and drought.

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Carbon emissions is the biggest contender to climate change and rising sea levels. So doing things like turning off non-needed lights in houses, not leaving your smart phones plugged in over night, cutting down on beef consumption, choosing to bike or ride the city bus to work/school instead of driving, and many many other things. If we all did small things to help, it will help slow down or possibly even stop climate change and rising sea levels.

(Source; School notes)

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We as humans are the only ones who are capable of fixing things. As it is our fault we caused all this, we should feel the authority to fix it. As I've stated before, this problem could end lives, destroy ecosystems, and wipe out entire cities. If we don't do anything then by the end of the century between 470 and 760 million people on the coasts will deal with serious flooding. The closer humans are to the coast, the worse they will be affected. It's estimated that over the century, hurricanes will grow 2 to 11% stronger. The average size of a hurricane is already at least 100 miles (300-400 in more tropical areas).

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Credit:

James Balog/Extreme Ice Survey

The ocean never stops moving. When you visit the beach, waves roll in and recede and the tides rise and fall. These are small daily changes that balance out over time.

Scientists agree that the changes in climate that we are seeing today are largely caused by human activity, and it's climate change that drives sea level rise. Sea level started rising in the late 1800s, soon after we started burning coal, gas and other fossil fuels for energy. When burned, these high-energy fuel sources send carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide absorbs heat from the sun and traps it, warming the atmosphere and the planet.

As the planet gets warmer, sea level rises for two reasons. First, warmer temperatures cause ice on land like glaciers and ice sheets to melt, and the meltwater flows into the ocean to increase sea level. Second, warm water expands and takes up more space than colder water, increasing the volume of water in the sea.

Almost all of the water on Earth is stored in two places: in the oceans (currently 97 percent of all water) and in glaciers (currently about 2.7 percent). How much water is in the oceans-and thus how high sea level is-largely depends on how much water is trapped in glacial ice.

Throughout our planet's history, sea level has risen and fallen dramatically. At times, there was no ice at the poles and the ocean was hundreds of feet higher than it is now; at other times, ice covered the planet and sea level was hundreds of feet lower. These changes are part of Earth's natural glacial cycles and have occurred over millions of years. Scientists use sediment and ice cores to learn more about sea level before the advent of tide gauges and satellites.

Earth's most recent glacial period peaked about 26,500 years ago. At that time, around 10 million square miles (26 million square kilometers) of ice covered the Earth. The Laurentide ice sheet covered Canada and the American Midwest, stretching over Minnesota and Wisconsin south to New York and the Rocky Mountains. Across the Atlantic, ice blanketed Iceland and stretched down over the British Isles and northern Europe, including Germany and Poland. The Patagonian ice sheet crept north from Antarctica to cover parts of Chile and Argentina. The climate was colder and drier globally; rain was scarce, but pockets of rainforest survived in the tropics. With so much of the planet's water tied up in ice, global sea level was more than 400 feet lower than it is today.

Low sea level meant that some land masses that are currently submerged were accessible to people. One of the best known is the Bering Land Bridge, which connected Alaska to Siberia. The first people to reach the Americas migrated across the land bridge and settled here. Land animals also made the journey over the bridge in both directions to colonize new continents. As the world's glaciers and ice sheets melted during the following millennia, the Bering Land Bridge was flooded and disappeared beneath the ocean's surface, cutting off the migration route.

Global warming associated with human activities causes sea level to rise in several ways.

Thermal Expansion

One property of water is that warm water takes up more space than cold water. So as the ocean warms from climate change, seawater expands to fill a greater volume and takes up more space. This is called thermal expansion, and it is responsible for the remaining one-third of sea level rise to date.

The idea that water expands when heated seems strange, but it is a property of most objects that occurs at the molecular level. When water molecules are heated, they absorb energy. That energy causes the molecules and atoms to move around more and, in the process, take up more space. If you heat up a cup of water, the small molecular expansions don't add up to a difference we can detect by eye. But when you have vast numbers of water molecules, like in the ocean, the tiny expansions add up to something we can see.

Thermal expansion is an ongoing contributor to sea level rise as long as ocean water continues to increase in temperature.

Melting Ice

Glaciers and ice sheets, large land-based formations of ice, are melting as global temperatures rise. That meltwater drains into the sea, increasing the ocean's water volume and global sea level. Melting ice has caused about two-thirds of the rise in sea level to date, one-third from land ice in Greenland and Antarctica and one third from melting ice on mountains.

Ice sheets and glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica melt three ways: from above due to warming air, from the sides as they break off into the sea, and from below due to warming ocean water where the ice extends over the sea. Because of this, the rate of ice melt varies from place to place as conditions change. The Arctic is warming more quickly than the Antarctic, which explains why the ice there is thinning more quickly. However, recent research suggests that the melting of Antarctica's ice shelves may be unstoppable-although the process may take centuries.

Other Contributions

There are other small contributions to sea level rise. As ice caps melt, the gravitation pull on Earth will change, affecting local sea level in complicated ways. Sea levels may rise in some places, and drop in others. When people use wells to pump water from underground reservoirs, that water eventually reaches the ocean. Other human impacts can decrease sea level rise, such as building dams and artificial reservoirs to store water. But none of these are capable of influencing sea level to the same extent as thermal expansion and the melting of large glaciers and ice sheets.

Measuring Global Sea Level

Changing Regional and Local Sea Levels

Although sea level is rising globally, in some places it is rising more quickly than others, and in some places sea level is even falling. This type of local- and regional-scale sea level change is what is most important when talking about the impacts of sea level on people and communities and how to plan for and manage those impacts.

Different places will experience varying consequences of sea level change for many reasons:

Some coastal areas are positioned high above sea level-such as Scotland, Iceland, and some parts of Alaska-while others are much closer to, or even below, sea level, such as New Orleans, Louisiana and much of the eastern United States. Coasts are constantly moving and changing, with inputs from tectonic plates.

Local geology can make land more resistant or prone to becoming saturated with encroaching seawater and eroding away.

When ice sheets melted, a great weight was removed from some areas. To understand what has been happening since, it helps to think of a person (like an ice sheet) sitting on a mattress (the land). When the person stands up (the ice melts), the part of the mattress underneath and close to the person springs back up; but the parts of the mattress far from the person sink back down. The same rising and sinking are still happening all over the world, even thousands of years after continental ice sheets have disappeared. This is called glacial isostatic adjustment.

Prevailing winds and ocean currents can push water towards or away from the coast.

Additional factors such as rainfall, vegetation, ice cover, groundwater extraction, coastal development, and oil and gas drilling can affect how well a region can handle rising sea levels.

See the "Regional Case Studies" section for examples of places already facing the consequences of rapid sea level change to demonstrate how it varies around the world.

As sea level rises, ocean waves won't roll onshore and submerge houses and communities all at once like in a summer blockbuster. The first signs of sea level rise will be increased damage from hurricanes and other storms and even high tides. Minor and major flooding will become more frequent. Coastlines will erode and creep backward almost imperceptibly. In fact, all of these impacts are already happening.

Storms and Flooding

Likewise, flooding during storms-sometimes called storm surges-will reach farther inland as sea level rises. During hurricanes and other large storms (like Nor'easters), strong winds push water beyond the normal high tide mark; beach houses are often built on stilts to protect against these storm surges. They are likely to get worse as sea level rises due to increased flooding danger across the board. Additionally, as the ocean warms from climate change, it will provide more energy to hurricanes, potentially making them stronger. Over the next century, hurricanes are estimated to grow between 2 and 11 percent stronger on average, according to NOAA. Combined, these are the "one-two punch of rising seas," say researchers at Columbia University, increasing the reach and power of storm surges.

The strength of any given storm can't currently be directly linked to climate change. But as sea level rises, bigger floods will become more frequent.

Changing Coastlines

Saltwater Intrusion

Sea level rise is not just a problem of water, it is also a problem of salt. Imagine if salt water flooded a farmer's field, or a coastal forest. Not only does the area have to survive flooding, but also a drenching in salt water that can kill plants and irreversibly alter soil chemistry. Saltwater flooding can mean death for these ecosystems. Already scientists have seen stands of "ghost forests" where once-healthy trees were killed by saltwater flooding, and farmers' fields are being converted to tidal marsh and salt flats.

This isn't just an effect of flooding. Salty ocean water can also flow underground into groundwater reservoirs, which are used for drinking water. It can also flow into the water table below the surface of the land, making the soil too salty for trees and plants to grow. This is called saltwater intrusion. Saltwater intrusion can also affect estuaries and freshwater areas that fisheries and coastal communities rely upon.

There's No Place Like Home

Not only humans, but other animals that rely on low-lying habitats will be impacted by sea level rise. Many birds use coasts and coastal ecosystems for breeding, laying eggs, finding food, or simply as a place to live. Sea turtles lay their eggs on beaches, returning to the same location every year. When beaches erode, or are covered by rising seas their options become more and more limited. Physical barriers that humans are considering to stop the rising seas, like sea walls, completely impede the turtles from coming ashore to build nests and lay eggs.

Species that are only found on islands are especially vulnerable, as their range is limited and they tend to already be vulnerable to extinction. With sea level rise animals like seabirds may not be able to react quickly enough to changes and their only homes may be inundated.

Saltwater intrusion will mean that coastal plant and tree species that can't handle salt water may die off, and a change in species biodiversity may occur. Along New York's Long Island Sound, for example, tidal marsh plants have moved into previously forested areas flooded by rising sea level. This is natural ecological adaptation, wherein organisms that are better suited to regular saltwater flooding can now thrive in the area. Over time, a diverse and healthy marsh ecosystem may develop in its place.

Below are some examples of places already facing the consequences of rapid sea level change to demonstrate how it varies around the world.

Florida and the U.S. Gulf Coast

A few times a year, when the pull of the sun and the moon align to join forces, coasts are hit with extra-high tides called King Tides. While King Tides are normal, their recent impacts are not. Thanks to sea level rise, King Tides reach higher and further inland now than they did 20 years ago, causing flooding in Miami and along Florida's coast. To some, it's a preview of how sea level rise will cause more frequent and higher flooding on coastlines around the world. It's also a staging ground for how to protect against rising seas; already, new pumps are restraining the ever-higher King Tides-for now.

Not only King Tides, but everyday tides are also already causing nuisance flooding. Climate Central calculated that "roughly three-quarters of the tidal flood days now occurring in towns along the East Coast would not be happening in the absence of the rise in the sea level caused by human emissions." (See "Storms and Flooding" below.)

Florida is the U.S. state facing the gravest consequences from sea level rise. According to NASA, three feet of water will ultimately inundate land along Florida's coast based only on the warming humans have caused so far.

Sea level is threatening Florida more profoundly than elsewhere for two main reasons. First, its elevation is very low; like many areas along the U.S. Gulf Coast, much of the land sits within a few feet of high tide, ensuring that a small change in sea level is noticeable. The second is that Florida sits on a bed of limestone, which is a very porous kind of rock. Saltwater readily infiltrates and erodes the limestone, driving flooding. Seawater is also likely to push its way into freshwater systems and drinking water reservoirs in these areas.

Island Nations

The people of each island nation face their own unique challenges, but some common themes emerge. As sea level rises, they face increased flooding and erosion of their shorelines, and sources of fresh water and agricultural land become unusable when seawater seeps in.

The Maldives is the lowest country on the planet. The average height of its 1,200 islands, which spread across 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) in the Indian Ocean, is only four feet (1.2 meters) above sea level. Already, ever-higher waves encroaching on the shores of the lowest islands erode beaches and there is nowhere for residents to retreat to when a tropical cyclone or a tsunami wave approaches. Residents have even been forced to move as the world's first climate change refugees.

Alaska

Alaska is a perfect demonstration of variation in regional sea level change: in some places, sea level is rising, and in others it is falling. Along the southern coast of Alaska, the land is rising two-to-four-times faster than the sea thanks to the region's geology (featuring a collision of tectonic plates and glacial rebound, both causing the land to rise). But along the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, other impacts from climate change are already affecting Alaskan communities in the form of increased storm surges, thawing permafrost, saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion. Furthermore, sea ice is now less protective of the coast because so much of it has melted. The result is that storms are stronger, flooding is more frequent, and coastlines are eroding along parts of Alaska's coast.

River Deltas

Areas where big rivers flow into the sea are particularly susceptible to sea level rise. These are low-lying areas to begin with, and their landforms are constantly in flux from water flow and sediment carried from land. Additionally, because of their historical importance as ports and locations near cities, governments have built a great deal of infrastructure around these deltas to keep them stable. Ironically, this could be their downfall. In attempting to preserve the current state of deltas, seawalls and other structures may prevent natural processes that would help them adapt to rising sea level.

Predicting future sea level rise is a difficult task because scientists don't know how quickly the planet will respond to the warming climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the international United Nations group tasked with summarizing climate change research every few years. Their 2013 report projected that sea level will rise by 2 to 3 feet by 2100 if we do not slow our carbon dioxide emissions by using less energy or using renewable energy. That is enough to threaten coastal cities and flood island nations. Even if we reduce our emissions, the report predicts that by 2100 sea level will rise by 1-2 feet, which is enough to cause much coastal flooding and erosion. Some scientists consider these estimates to be conservative, and expect greater sea level rise. The U.S. National Climate Assessment, for example, estimates that sea level will rise between 2 and 6 feet by 2100.

Sea level rise is a reality we will have to face. What can we do to minimize the damage and prepare for what comes?

Reducing Emissions

Holding Back the Sea

Can walls hold the water back? Some seem to think so, at least in the short-term. Coastal barriers have been used for thousands of years, dating as far back as the ancient Roman Empire. Whether to make man-made harbors for shipping needs or simple walls in order to stop erosion, humans have attempted to engineer coastlines for a long time.

Sea walls aren't a one-and-done fix, however. They must be maintained consistently, as waves and salt quickly erode concrete, and as sea level rises they will need to be built higher and higher. This type of man-made barrier also has implications for the natural coastline. They can render sandy beaches useless for both humans and the animals that call it home-causing erosion and disrupting the natural movement of sand and waves.

Moving Inland

Sea level has changed and coastlines shifted throughout human history, and people adapted by moving somewhere else. Some people use this history of human adaptation as an excuse to avoid thinking about or acting on climate change and sea level rise.

Over the next century, people will be forced to abandon their homes along the coasts as higher tides and increased flooding make life difficult. Many cities, states and countries are already incorporating sea level rise and shifting coastlines into their planning and policy documents. Not only people, but animals will have to move and adapt. Scientists are already working to help Laysan albatrosses establish colonies on higher ground.

NASA Climate page
NASA - Visualization of regional patterns of sea level change
Surging Seas - Climate Central
NASA Images of Change
NASA Climate Time Machine
Tide gauge history
Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

News Articles:
Rising Waters: How Fast and How Far Will Sea Levels Rise?
Rising Sea Level Will Slow Earth's Rotation
3.2 Millimeters: A Troubling Rise in Sea Level
Pacific Islands Take Steps to Counter Rising Sea Levels

Scientific Papers:
Links between climate and sea levels for the past three million years - Kurt Lambeck, Tezer M. Esat and Emma-Kate Potter
Sea-Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century - John Church and Neil White
Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era - Robert Kopp, Andrew Kemp, et al.
Probabilistic reanalysis of twentieth-century sea-level rise - Carling C. Hay, Eric Morrow, Robert E. Kopp and Jerry X. Mitrovica
The multimillennial sea-level commitment of global warming - Anders Levermann, Peter U. Clark, et al.

Almost all of the water on Earth is stored in two places: in the oceans (currently 97 percent of all water) and in glaciers (currently about 2.7 percent). How much water is in the oceans-and thus how high sea level is-largely depends on how much water is trapped in glacial ice.

Throughout our planet's history, sea level has risen and fallen dramatically. At times, there was no ice at the poles and the ocean was hundreds of feet higher than it is now; at other times, ice covered the planet and sea level was hundreds of feet lower. These changes are part of Earth's natural glacial cycles and have occurred over millions of years. Scientists use sediment and ice cores to learn more about sea level before the advent of tide gauges and satellites.

Earth's most recent glacial period peaked about 26,500 years ago. At that time, around 10 million square miles (26 million square kilometers) of ice covered the Earth. The Laurentide ice sheet covered Canada and the American Midwest, stretching over Minnesota and Wisconsin south to New York and the Rocky Mountains. Across the Atlantic, ice blanketed Iceland and stretched down over the British Isles and northern Europe, including Germany and Poland. The Patagonian ice sheet crept north from Antarctica to cover parts of Chile and Argentina. The climate was colder and drier globally; rain was scarce, but pockets of rainforest survived in the tropics. With so much of the planet's water tied up in ice, global sea level was more than 400 feet lower than it is today.

Low sea level meant that some land masses that are currently submerged were accessible to people. One of the best known is the Bering Land Bridge, which connected Alaska to Siberia. The first people to reach the Americas migrated across the land bridge and settled here. Land animals also made the journey over the bridge in both directions to colonize new continents. As the world's glaciers and ice sheets melted during the following millennia, the Bering Land Bridge was flooded and disappeared beneath the ocean's surface, cutting off the migration route.

Global warming associated with human activities causes sea level to rise in several ways.

Thermal Expansion

One property of water is that warm water takes up more space than cold water. So as the ocean warms from climate change, seawater expands to fill a greater volume and takes up more space. This is called thermal expansion, and it is responsible for the remaining one-third of sea level rise to date.

The idea that water expands when heated seems strange, but it is a property of most objects that occurs at the molecular level. When water molecules are heated, they absorb energy. That energy causes the molecules and atoms to move around more and, in the process, take up more space. If you heat up a cup of water, the small molecular expansions don't add up to a difference we can detect by eye. But when you have vast numbers of water molecules, like in the ocean, the tiny expansions add up to something we can see.

Thermal expansion is an ongoing contributor to sea level rise as long as ocean water continues to increase in temperature.

Melting Ice

Glaciers and ice sheets, large land-based formations of ice, are melting as global temperatures rise. That meltwater drains into the sea, increasing the ocean's water volume and global sea level. Melting ice has caused about two-thirds of the rise in sea level to date, one-third from land ice in Greenland and Antarctica and one third from melting ice on mountains.

Other Contributions

There are other small contributions to sea level rise. As ice caps melt, the gravitation pull on Earth will change, affecting local sea level in complicated ways. Sea levels may rise in some places, and drop in others. When people use wells to pump water from underground reservoirs, that water eventually reaches the ocean. Other human impacts can decrease sea level rise, such as building dams and artificial reservoirs to store water. But none of these are capable of influencing sea level to the same extent as thermal expansion and the melting of large glaciers and ice sheets.

Measuring Global Sea Level

Changing Regional and Local Sea Levels

Although sea level is rising globally, in some places it is rising more quickly than others, and in some places sea level is even falling. This type of local- and regional-scale sea level change is what is most important when talking about the impacts of sea level on people and communities and how to plan for and manage those impacts.

Different places will experience varying consequences of sea level change for many reasons:

Some coastal areas are positioned high above sea level-such as Scotland, Iceland, and some parts of Alaska-while others are much closer to, or even below, sea level, such as New Orleans, Louisiana and much of the eastern United States. Coasts are constantly moving and changing, with inputs from tectonic plates.

Local geology can make land more resistant or prone to becoming saturated with encroaching seawater and eroding away.

When ice sheets melted, a great weight was removed from some areas. To understand what has been happening since, it helps to think of a person (like an ice sheet) sitting on a mattress (the land). When the person stands up (the ice melts), the part of the mattress underneath and close to the person springs back up; but the parts of the mattress far from the person sink back down. The same rising and sinking are still happening all over the world, even thousands of years after continental ice sheets have disappeared. This is called glacial isostatic adjustment.

Prevailing winds and ocean currents can push water towards or away from the coast.

Additional factors such as rainfall, vegetation, ice cover, groundwater extraction, coastal development, and oil and gas drilling can affect how well a region can handle rising sea levels.

See the "Regional Case Studies" section for examples of places already facing the consequences of rapid sea level change to demonstrate how it varies around the world.

As sea level rises, ocean waves won't roll onshore and submerge houses and communities all at once like in a summer blockbuster. The first signs of sea level rise will be increased damage from hurricanes and other storms and even high tides. Minor and major flooding will become more frequent. Coastlines will erode and creep backward almost imperceptibly. In fact, all of these impacts are already happening.

Storms and Flooding

The strength of any given storm can't currently be directly linked to climate change. But as sea level rises, bigger floods will become more frequent.

Changing Coastlines

Saltwater Intrusion

Sea level rise is not just a problem of water, it is also a problem of salt. Imagine if salt water flooded a farmer's field, or a coastal forest. Not only does the area have to survive flooding, but also a drenching in salt water that can kill plants and irreversibly alter soil chemistry. Saltwater flooding can mean death for these ecosystems. Already scientists have seen stands of "ghost forests" where once-healthy trees were killed by saltwater flooding, and farmers' fields are being converted to tidal marsh and salt flats.

This isn't just an effect of flooding. Salty ocean water can also flow underground into groundwater reservoirs, which are used for drinking water. It can also flow into the water table below the surface of the land, making the soil too salty for trees and plants to grow. This is called saltwater intrusion. Saltwater intrusion can also affect estuaries and freshwater areas that fisheries and coastal communities rely upon.

There's No Place Like Home

Not only humans, but other animals that rely on low-lying habitats will be impacted by sea level rise. Many birds use coasts and coastal ecosystems for breeding, laying eggs, finding food, or simply as a place to live. Sea turtles lay their eggs on beaches, returning to the same location every year. When beaches erode, or are covered by rising seas their options become more and more limited. Physical barriers that humans are considering to stop the rising seas, like sea walls, completely impede the turtles from coming ashore to build nests and lay eggs.

Species that are only found on islands are especially vulnerable, as their range is limited and they tend to already be vulnerable to extinction. With sea level rise animals like seabirds may not be able to react quickly enough to changes and their only homes may be inundated.

Saltwater intrusion will mean that coastal plant and tree species that can't handle salt water may die off, and a change in species biodiversity may occur. Along New York's Long Island Sound, for example, tidal marsh plants have moved into previously forested areas flooded by rising sea level. This is natural ecological adaptation, wherein organisms that are better suited to regular saltwater flooding can now thrive in the area. Over time, a diverse and healthy marsh ecosystem may develop in its place.

Below are some examples of places already facing the consequences of rapid sea level change to demonstrate how it varies around the world.

Florida and the U.S. Gulf Coast

A few times a year, when the pull of the sun and the moon align to join forces, coasts are hit with extra-high tides called King Tides. While King Tides are normal, their recent impacts are not. Thanks to sea level rise, King Tides reach higher and further inland now than they did 20 years ago, causing flooding in Miami and along Florida's coast. To some, it's a preview of how sea level rise will cause more frequent and higher flooding on coastlines around the world. It's also a staging ground for how to protect against rising seas; already, new pumps are restraining the ever-higher King Tides-for now.

Not only King Tides, but everyday tides are also already causing nuisance flooding. Climate Central calculated that "roughly three-quarters of the tidal flood days now occurring in towns along the East Coast would not be happening in the absence of the rise in the sea level caused by human emissions." (See "Storms and Flooding" below.)

Florida is the U.S. state facing the gravest consequences from sea level rise. According to NASA, three feet of water will ultimately inundate land along Florida's coast based only on the warming humans have caused so far.

Sea level is threatening Florida more profoundly than elsewhere for two main reasons. First, its elevation is very low; like many areas along the U.S. Gulf Coast, much of the land sits within a few feet of high tide, ensuring that a small change in sea level is noticeable. The second is that Florida sits on a bed of limestone, which is a very porous kind of rock. Saltwater readily infiltrates and erodes the limestone, driving flooding. Seawater is also likely to push its way into freshwater systems and drinking water reservoirs in these areas.

Island Nations

The people of each island nation face their own unique challenges, but some common themes emerge. As sea level rises, they face increased flooding and erosion of their shorelines, and sources of fresh water and agricultural land become unusable when seawater seeps in.

The Maldives is the lowest country on the planet. The average height of its 1,200 islands, which spread across 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) in the Indian Ocean, is only four feet (1.2 meters) above sea level. Already, ever-higher waves encroaching on the shores of the lowest islands erode beaches and there is nowhere for residents to retreat to when a tropical cyclone or a tsunami wave approaches. Residents have even been forced to move as the world's first climate change refugees.

Alaska

Alaska is a perfect demonstration of variation in regional sea level change: in some places, sea level is rising, and in others it is falling. Along the southern coast of Alaska, the land is rising two-to-four-times faster than the sea thanks to the region's geology (featuring a collision of tectonic plates and glacial rebound, both causing the land to rise). But along the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, other impacts from climate change are already affecting Alaskan communities in the form of increased storm surges, thawing permafrost, saltwater intrusion and coastal erosion. Furthermore, sea ice is now less protective of the coast because so much of it has melted. The result is that storms are stronger, flooding is more frequent, and coastlines are eroding along parts of Alaska's coast.

River Deltas

Areas where big rivers flow into the sea are particularly susceptible to sea level rise. These are low-lying areas to begin with, and their landforms are constantly in flux from water flow and sediment carried from land. Additionally, because of their historical importance as ports and locations near cities, governments have built a great deal of infrastructure around these deltas to keep them stable. Ironically, this could be their downfall. In attempting to preserve the current state of deltas, seawalls and other structures may prevent natural processes that would help them adapt to rising sea level.

Predicting future sea level rise is a difficult task because scientists don't know how quickly the planet will respond to the warming climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the international United Nations group tasked with summarizing climate change research every few years. Their 2013 report projected that sea level will rise by 2 to 3 feet by 2100 if we do not slow our carbon dioxide emissions by using less energy or using renewable energy. That is enough to threaten coastal cities and flood island nations. Even if we reduce our emissions, the report predicts that by 2100 sea level will rise by 1-2 feet, which is enough to cause much coastal flooding and erosion. Some scientists consider these estimates to be conservative, and expect greater sea level rise. The U.S. National Climate Assessment, for example, estimates that sea level will rise between 2 and 6 feet by 2100.

Sea level rise is a reality we will have to face. What can we do to minimize the damage and prepare for what comes?

Reducing Emissions

Holding Back the Sea

Can walls hold the water back? Some seem to think so, at least in the short-term. Coastal barriers have been used for thousands of years, dating as far back as the ancient Roman Empire. Whether to make man-made harbors for shipping needs or simple walls in order to stop erosion, humans have attempted to engineer coastlines for a long time.

Sea walls aren't a one-and-done fix, however. They must be maintained consistently, as waves and salt quickly erode concrete, and as sea level rises they will need to be built higher and higher. This type of man-made barrier also has implications for the natural coastline. They can render sandy beaches useless for both humans and the animals that call it home-causing erosion and disrupting the natural movement of sand and waves.

Moving Inland

Sea level has changed and coastlines shifted throughout human history, and people adapted by moving somewhere else. Some people use this history of human adaptation as an excuse to avoid thinking about or acting on climate change and sea level rise.

Over the next century, people will be forced to abandon their homes along the coasts as higher tides and increased flooding make life difficult. Many cities, states and countries are already incorporating sea level rise and shifting coastlines into their planning and policy documents. Not only people, but animals will have to move and adapt. Scientists are already working to help Laysan albatrosses establish colonies on higher ground.

NASA Climate page
NASA - Visualization of regional patterns of sea level change
Surging Seas - Climate Central
NASA Images of Change
NASA Climate Time Machine
Tide gauge history
Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

News Articles:
Rising Waters: How Fast and How Far Will Sea Levels Rise?
Rising Sea Level Will Slow Earth's Rotation
3.2 Millimeters: A Troubling Rise in Sea Level
Pacific Islands Take Steps to Counter Rising Sea Levels

Scientific Papers:
Links between climate and sea levels for the past three million years - Kurt Lambeck, Tezer M. Esat and Emma-Kate Potter
Sea-Level Rise from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Century - John Church and Neil White
Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era - Robert Kopp, Andrew Kemp, et al.
Probabilistic reanalysis of twentieth-century sea-level rise - Carling C. Hay, Eric Morrow, Robert E. Kopp and Jerry X. Mitrovica
The multimillennial sea-level commitment of global warming - Anders Levermann, Peter U. Clark, et al.

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The ocean never stops moving. When you visit the beach, waves roll in and recede and the tides rise and fall. These are small daily changes that balance out over time. Scientists agree that the changes in climate that we are seeing today are largely caused by human activity, and it's climate change that drives sea level rise.

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Crops, animals, and whole ecosystems could be drowned and destroyed by the high levels of water. Anything near large rivers or costs, will be drowned or completely submerged by the water. Large amounts of freshwater fish like salmon, trout, and crayfish could be killed by the levels of salt put into the rivers due to the high ocean water levels. Polar bears will also be severely affected. They rely on ice sheets that are floating in the ocean to catch their prey. But since the ocean is expanding and absorbing the heat from all the CO2, the ice sheets are melting and polar bears are finding it more difficult to catch their prey.

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10364_18958---,00.html

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Sea level has been rising at an average rate of approximately 1.8 mm a year for the past 100 years. Sea level rise has been attributed mainly to an increase in global temperatures and the subsequent thermal expansion, which causes the upper 500 meters (1640 ft.) of the surface of the ocean to expand, with a fraction of this attributed to the melting of ice sheets and glaciers due to global warming. While sea level rise affects both humans and animals, it may have a profound effect on certain animal species which rely on the coastal ecosystems, which are most affected by sea level rise, for breeding and feeding.

Coastal habitat

Increasing sea levels causes flooding on the coastal ecosystem. The depth of flooding depends on the elevation of the coastal habitat, for example, estuaries, bogs, swamps, mangroves, marshes, mud flats and beaches are the first habitats to be flooded. Many coastal animals are resilient to saltwater inundation, but others require freshwater to survive. Sea level rise threatens to flood many coastal wetlands. Wetlands are biologically diverse ecosystems, hosting a variety of plant and animal species. It has been estimated that sea level rise could exceed one meter (3.2 ft.) in the next one hundred years, leaving the wetland environments of the world extremely vulnerable.

Estuaries

Estuaries are coastal ecosystems with inflows of both fresh water from rivers and streams and salty water from the ocean, making estuaries some of the most productive habitats of the Earth. They provide nursery for many marine animals and harbor a wide diversity of birds and other animal species. Higher sea levels are likely to intrude into the estuary ecosystem, increasing salinity further upstream and affecting the entire habitat. Many animals may adapt to variable salt concentrations, but many other animal species might not be able to adapt to the changes in salinity and may be forced to migrate.

Polar bear

The melting of the ice sheets contributes to increase the levels of the world's oceans. This is affecting certain animal species in the Arctic. One such species is the polar bear. Polar bears rely on the ice sheets that abound on the Arctic sea to find their prey. Global warming is causing the ice sheets to melt earlier each year, affecting the survival of polar bears. It is predicted that polar bears will not survive total loss of sea-ice cover during the summer. It is estimated that the population of polar bears is of a little more than 20,000 and that this amount could decrease by the year 2050.

Sea turtles

Six species of sea turtles are endangered due to sea rising levels and rising temperatures. Rising sea levels will flood and erode beaches along many sand beaches, leaving the nesting beach habitat exposed to predators. The rising temperatures threaten to exceed the temperature limit at which turtle's eggs incubate. Coral reefs on which some species of turtles feed are being affected by rising temperatures due to global warming. Sea grass on which adult turtles feed is being affected by changing temperatures, as well. Although turtles have adapted to geologic changes in the past, it may take from decades to centuries before they can reestablish new habitable zones.

Coral reefs

Rising sea levels due to global warming may have a great impact on the coral reef ecosystem. The coral reef ecosystem is adapted to thrive within certain temperature and sea level range. Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic zooxanthellae. Zooxanthellae need the sunlight in order to produce the nutrients necessary for the coral. Sea level rise may cause a decrease in solar radiation at the sea surface level, affecting the ability of photosynthetic zooxanthellae to produce nutrients for the coral, whereas, a sudden exposure of the coral reef to the atmosphere due to a low tide event may induce coral bleaching.

Sea level rise is predicted to significantly impact the coastal environment in the coming century. Rising sea levels will cause flooding in lowlands; increase the saline content of ground water; and increase erosion of land. It will also intensify storms which are related to warmer ocean water. This will affect animal species thriving in the coastal ecosystem, which will have to migrate. According to the IPCC, rising sea level will have a number of impacts in the coastal environment, including wetland and coastal flooding, erosion, salinization of soil and aquifers and the loss of fish, birds and a wide variety of other animal's habitats.

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The Impact of Rising Sea Levels on Animal Life

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Sea level has been rising at an average rate of approximately 1.8 mm a year for the past 100 years. Sea level rise has been attributed mainly to an increase in global temperatures and the subsequent thermal expansion, which causes the upper 500 meters (1640 ft.)

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Rising sea levels will effect humans in many destructive ways. Flooding will be the most serious. The ocean waters could rise to anywhere from 4 feet to 10 feet. Which means that coastal towns and even major cities will be either wiped out or inhabitable. The ocean water will also make rivers rise. Towns near major rivers could easily become inhabitable. Nearly everyone will be effected by flooding in some way.

(Source: School Notes)

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Forest fires, permafrost, sunspots, and water vapor are all natural causes to global warming and rising sea levels. But these causes are not as destructive as the fossil fuels and methane humans produce

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Global warming is the increase in the earth's average temperature due to release of several greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by humans. Global warming is affecting many parts of the world. Due to global warming, the glaciers are melting which is causing the rise in the sea level. When the level of the sea rises, it causes danger to the people living in the low lying areas.

When the level of the sea rises, it covers the plants and causes some of them to die. When they die, animals lose their main source of food. We, human beings lose our two sources of food, plants and animals. It may also force people to lose their homes. In other words, the whole chain will get affected if nothing is done on time to stop global warming from spreading its wings.

With the global temperature increasing by 3%, many believe that global warming is on the climb. Right away, experts will say it's time to save energy: Turn off lights not in use, or carpool with your annoying co-worker who loves knock-knock jokes. We've all heard the advice by scientist greatly involved in global warming, and while their argument rests firm in data and conclusive research, are we the only ones causing global warming? The answer to that is a tricky one.

The United Nations formed a group of scientists called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC to review the latest scientific findings and write a report summarizing all that is known about global warming.

More from global warming:

Here are the top natural and man-made causes of global warming.

Top 5 Natural Causes of Global Warming

1. Forest Fires: Deforestation by nature is another leading cause of global warming. Natural forest fires are usually televised on the news, showing the devastation of mountain homes and communities. While this loss is tragic, the effects of these natural occurring forest fires pose a problem for the earth's air. Forest fires emit carbon-filled smoke into the atmosphere, and new forests' growth is slow and not stable enough to produce the much needed oxygen into the newly, suffocating carbon air. Natural forest fires will eventually run their course, but left in the ashes are polluting gases that get trapped in the atmosphere.

2. Permafrost: When frozen soil, constituting about 25% of the Northern Hemisphere, increases, it keeps in the carbon and methane gases. So, while you may be thinking how it can be global warming when you're still freezing in Tibet, the permafrost is actually leaking carbon into the earth's atmosphere. While scientists cannot stop permafrost from emitting these gases, the earth's melting icecaps at incredibly fast rates, are cause for concern.

3. Sunspots: Definitely more contributing than your four legged friend are solar flares from the sun. According to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), sunspots are increasing global temperature. Sunspots restrict the passing of solar plasma, which in affect gives off radiation. You don't have to work for NASA to know radiation is a bad thing. Sunspots and solar flares are powerful and unstoppable. They can change the energy radiating to earth's atmosphere, and thus increase climate temperature. Solar flares, however have been a natural occurring event for millions of years. If only sunspots and solar flares were to blame, the world's recent increased temperature would barely move.

4. Water Vapor: If you only thought NASA was busy planning moon missions and orbiting outer space, think again. According to NASA, two-thirds of the gases stuck in the thick blanket is in the form of water vapor. This hitch in tow effect means rising temperature, rising vapor. The water vapor is unable to escape, and thus results in hotter climate changes. NASA continues to work on water vapor solutions to reduce their effect on global warming.

5. Man's Best Friend: Our friendly, furry, bizarre, and sometimes extreme pals in the animal kingdom are also to blame, sort of. While animals also breathe out carbon dioxide and methane, their small contribution is miniscule compared to humans and their consumption of non-renewable energy. Nature's animal release of carbon dioxide, although minor, is still a natural causing factor in releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Top 7 Man-Made Causes for Global Warming

1. Man-induced Deforestation: Deforestation is the cutting down of trees and plants to make way for any development activity. Mother nature taking out an entire forest is one thing, but man doing it for the use of crop cultivation, fuel, and other consumption, is another. Each day our forests are bulldozed for the prospect of farms and factories. Fuel used for wood and charcoal only adds to the polluted gases in the atmosphere. Our consumer commodities provided by forestry includes paper and lumber. The loss of our forests results in a chain reaction where too much carbon is released into the air, with not enough oxygen to combat it.

This means that it is very important to protect our trees to stop the greenhouse effect, and also so we can breathe and live. Deforestation is blamed for rise in the greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere by cutting or burning them. New development projects, requirement of land for homes and factories, requirement for wood and also soil erosion are the major factors that are causing deforestation, which in turn leading to global warming.

2. Fossil Fuels: Pollution whether it is vehicular, electrical or industrial is the main contributor to the global warming. Everyday billions of vehicles release various gases into the atmosphere. This causes earth to warm up and increase its average temperature. Electricity causes pollution in many ways. Over 75% of the electricity worldwide is produced by burning of fossil fuels. Many gases are sent into the air when fossil fuels are burnt of which main is the carbon dioxide gas.

Fossil fuel like coal is burnt to produce electricity. Coal is the major fuel that is burnt to produce power. Coal produces around 1.7 times as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy when flamed as does natural gas and 1.25 times as much as oil.

We're all well aware of the vast amounts of energy consumed everyday by humans everywhere since our first memories. Nearly 40% of the U.S. release of carbon dioxide is due to the burning of fossil fuels-gasoline and electricity in our homes. Finding sources for renewable energy, clean burning fuel options, and methods to cut back the amount of energy exhausted, could cut that 40% significantly.

Industries on the other hand release various gases into the water and air. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are the major greenhouse gases. Different gases have different heat trapping capabilities. Some of them trap more heat than carbon dioxide. Methane is much more effective then carbon dioxide in entrapping heat in the atmosphere. By driving cars, using electricity from coal fired plants and heating up our homes from natural gases, we release carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases in the atmosphere.

3. Landfills: When we throw garbage out of our house it goes to landfills. Landfills are those big chunks of garbage that stink and can be seen in so many places around the world. The garbage is then used by big recycling companies to make some useful products out from it.

Most of the time that garbage is burnt which releases toxic gases including methane into the atmosphere. These enormous amounts of toxic greenhouse gases when go into the atmosphere make global warming worse.

4. Overpopulation: Another cause of global warming is overpopulation. Since carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, the increase in population makes the problem worse because we breathe out more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. More people means more demand for food, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more demand for cars and more demand for homes.

More demand for food will lead to more transportation since movement of goods and services is done by transportation sector. More demand for cars means more pollution in the air and more traffic on the roads which means longer waiting time on the traffic lights and that will result in burning of more fuel. More demand for homes means cutting down of plants and trees to make way for homes, schools and colleges.

5. Mining: Oil and coal are two main culprits in producing greenhouse gases. Methane, like carbon dioxide creates a thick shield over the atmosphere trapping the sun's rays. With the continued use of mining operations, these harmful gases will only increase.

6. Fertilizer Use: Think of the countless farmlands across the heartland of America. The unique thing about fertilizer is that it produces nitrous oxide once it absorbs the soil. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide. The EPA strongly warns that the farming industry's use of fertilizer is one of the leading causes of global warming.

7. Meat Consumption: Remember earlier when the animal world was sort of to blame for emitting carbon dioxide into the air? Well, the bigger party to blame is us. Due to our Western diet and habits, the raising, grazing, and manufacturing of animal products contributes greatly to the rise of global temperature. According to research, 51% of the greenhouse gases: methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide are caused by animal agriculture. If we would stop ordering juicy cheeseburgers, excessive amounts of carbon dioxide by animals stop emitting the atmosphere.

There are a number of natural causing factors involved in global warming. While scientists continue to observe and study sunspots, water vapor, and permafrost, there is little that can be done to penetrate such vast forces. What we can do, however, is truly evaluate and prioritize how we treat and value our planet. Global warming contributes to not only the fall of ecosystems, weather patterns, and rises in sea levels, but the overall quality of life we wish for on this planet. There are many things we can do to help reduce the amount of energy we consume. Switching to renewable energy, changing lifestyles and diets, and controlling our consumption of non-renewable products, can greatly make a huge difference. The future of the earth is in our hands. So, is global warming Nature's fault or ours?
References: Global warming causes
Image credit

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Natural and Man-Made Causes of Global Warming - Conserve Energy Future

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Causes of Global Warming: Global warming is affecting many parts of the world. Its due to this only that glaciers are melting which are causing the rise in the sea level. When the level of the sea rises, it cause danger to the people living in the low lying areas.

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Humans need to use fossil fuels for providing the basic needs of civilization. Except, there are ways to reduce how much fossil fuels we burn. Using things like solar and wind power, cutting down fossil fuel emissions, and raising less cattle can severely cut down the issue of global warming.

(Source: School notes)

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Humans are putting out fossil fuels, which is being trapped in the atmosphere and heating up the ocean and air. Humans put out fossil fuels from cars, factories, trucks, and trains. Methane is put out by humans and natural causes. Cows are an animal that produce large amounts of methane, but humans also breed cows and farm large amounts of them. Methane is also produced by landfill breaking down. Things like garbage piles and clothes break down and produce methane which is trapped in the atmosphere.

(Source: School notes)

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The human and natural emissions produced are being trapped in our atmosphere due to a process called the Greenhouse Effect. The ocean absorbs 90% of the heat from the atmosphere, thus heating the ocean. The ocean then expands due to a process called  "Thermal Expansion". Where the ocean water expands and therefore sea levels rise. The ocean is also heating up glaciers and ice sheets, which then melt and puts more water in the ocean. Since the atmosphere is also warming up, it is also a factor to the melting of ice.

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national oceanic and atmospheric administration

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There is strong evidence that sea level is rising and will continue to rise this century at increasing rates.

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Greenhouse Effect: the trapping of the sun's warmth in a planet's lower atmosphere due to the greater transparency of the atmosphere to visible radiation from the sun than to infrared radiation emitted from the planet's surface.

Fossil Fuels: an energy-rich substance type of fuel that is created from dead plant and animal material trapped between layers of rock deep within the Earth. Over millions of years, heat
and pressure transform this material into fossil fuels. Some examples of fossil fuels are coal,
oil, and natural gas. Humans burn fossil fuels to make energy. When fossil fuels are burned,
they release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

Thermal Expansion: When water heats up, it expands. About half of the past century's rise in sea level is attributable to warmer oceans simply occupying more space.

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Rising sea levels is a serious problem that is already beginning to happen. If we don't cut down on our carbon and methane emissions, many of our major cities and homes will be drowned. Rising sea levels is caused by climate change, more specifically, global warming. The release of carbon and methane emissions is being trapped in the atmosphere due to a process called the Greenhouse Effect. The trapped gases is heating up the earth, which heats up the ocean and causes it to expand . The heat is also melting ice, glaciers, and ice sheets. At this rate Tokyo, Shanghai, Kolkata, Jakarta, New York City, Hong Kong, Miami, and New Orleans are just a few major cities that would be underwater. As someone that would very much want to live in and be apart of any of these major cities, it would be a devastation for them to be wiped out.

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Sea levels across the globe will rise faster than at any time throughout human history if the Earth's warming continues beyond 2 degrees Celsius.

The Atlantic coast of North America will be one of the worst-hit areas as melting glaciers cause the sea level to rise over the next century, a new study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds.

However, that rise is not expected to be uniform, as gravity and the movement of the ocean will play a role in how the water is distributed, and some areas will be hit worse than others. New York and other cities along the East Coast could see seas rise by more than 3 feet by the end of the century if the Earth warms by 4 or 5 degrees beyond preindustrial levels.

If the rate of carbon emissions continues unabated, the authors said, the globe would warm by 2 degrees and cause significant sea-level rise by 2040. It would be worse along the East Coast of North America and Norway, which are expected to experience a sea-level rise of about a foot. The relative speed of the sea's rise means many areas won't have time to adapt, researchers found. And from there, warming would accelerate even faster.

"The coastal communities of rapidly expanding cities in the developing world and vulnerable tropical coastal ecosystems will have a very limited time to adapt to sea-level rises after the '2 degrees Celsius' threshold is likely to be reached," said Svetlana Jevrejeva, a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool, England, and lead author of the study.

The sea-level rise comes as the Earth's record-breaking warmth is expected to become the "new normal," according to another study published this week in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. While 2015 was the hottest year on record, it could be the average within the next decade if carbon emissions continue to rise at their current rate, it found. And even if countries take action to limit carbon dioxide, humanity may have already locked in the increased warmth by 2040.

But limiting emissions now will mean some of the regions of the globe are not locked in for the new levels of warmth, and that they can still have significant variability.

"It gives us hope to know that if we act quickly to reduce greenhouse gases, seasonal extremes might never enter a new normal state in the 21st century at regional levels for the Southern Hemisphere summer and Northern Hemisphere winter," said Sophie Lewis, a researcher at the Australian National University.

Millions of urban dwellers at risk

Nations that signed the Paris Agreement limiting warming to a maximum of 2 degrees are meeting this week in Morocco to put the accord into motion. Meanwhile, the United Nations has already cautioned that the emission targets countries voluntarily set may not be strict enough to meet the 2-degree goal.

Two degrees of warming is expected to cause an average global sea-level rise of 8 inches, but virtually all coastal areas will see more of a rise, Jevrejeva found. If warming exceeds 2 degrees by 2100, as some climate scientists worry it might, about 80 percent of the global coastline could experience a rise in sea levels of 6 feet. Such a rapid rise in sea levels is unprecedented since the dawn of the Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago, according to the study.

The research takes further the potential for sea-level rise posed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which argued that sea-level rise of 11 to 38 inches is possible by 2100. Many climate scientists have since claimed that estimate is too conservative.

Absent a concerted effort to limit warming, cities and island nations across the globe are at risk, researchers found.

"Coastal communities, notably rapidly expanding cities in the developing world; small island states; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Cultural World Heritage sites; and vulnerable tropical coastal ecosystems will have a very limited time after midcentury to adapt to these rises," they wrote.

The rise for New York is predicated on a warming of 5 degrees by 2100, which some researchers have contested may be too high. But at the upper scale of that level of warming, tens of millions of people around the world would be displaced. That includes "2.5 million living in low-lying areas of Miami; 2.1 million in Guangzhou [in China]; 1.8 million in Mumbai; and more than 1 million each in Osaka [in Japan], Tokyo, New Orleans, New York, and [Vietnam's] Ho Chi Minh City," researchers contended.

The study is part of a growing body of research that looks for possible scenarios that involve the potential for catastrophic sea-level rise, but more attention should be paid to the loss of land ice, as well, said Tad Pfeffer, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. While researchers typically focus on the loss of glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland, the loss of land ice in other spots across the globe is now contributing to sea-level rise at almost the same rate as the Arctic's melting ice, he said. It's the full scope of the current glacial loss that concerns political leaders and policymakers because it has already presented a pressing need to be addressed, he said.

"This near-term time scale is the time of greatest concern to decisionmakers," he said. "Research that reaches out to 2100 and beyond is scientifically exciting, but really of secondary importance to the people who are trying to make sense of the science for decisionmaking."
Reprinted from ClimateWire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

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Sea levels across the globe will rise faster than at any time throughout human history if the Earth's warming continues beyond 2 degrees Celsius. The Atlantic coast of North America will be one of the worst-hit areas as melting glaciers cause the sea level to rise over the next century, a new study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds.

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Core 3
Topic- Rising Sea Levels
Perspective- Future City Citizen
Format- Powerpoint