A lead author of the next international climate change assessment says his ice research supports predictions of a doubling in the rate of sea-level rise over the next century.
Professor Tim Naish, director of New Zealand’s Antarctic Research Centre, has been appointed a lead author of the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He says rock cores drilled from the Antarctic coastline reveal how the Earth coped with a hotter climate 4 million years ago.
- The Greenland ice sheet had melted contributing another seven metres.
- The West Antarctic ice sheet had melted – [that] contributed five metres of sea level rise.
- In fact the earth was a very similar looking place to what it is today.
- It sounds a long time ago but it was the last time that the Earth had a climate that’s very similar to the climate that we are heading towards in the next century with global warming.
Professor Naish’s findings will be presented at the Australian Earth Sciences Convention in Canberra.
He says some researchers have forecast a two-metre increase in sea levels within the next century but his studies support only a one-metre increase.
Source: Expert issues sea level warning – abc.net.au
Date: 07 July 2010