The pace at which global oceans are rising has doubled in three decades, and on current trends will double again by 2100 to about one centimetre per year, they reported in a study.
“But even if this target is met,“ he added, “sea level rise is likely to accelerate to rates that are very difficult to adapt to.”
Some 230 million people live on land within one metre (3.2 feet) of sea level, and more than a billion reside within 10 metres.
Averaged across 20 years, Earth’s surface temperature is currently 1.2C above pre-industrial levels, already enough to lift the ocean watermark by several metres over the coming centuries, Stokes and colleagues noted in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
- Tipping points -
In 2021, the IPCC projected “likely” sea level rise of 40 to 80 centimetres by 2100, depending on how how quickly humanity draws down greenhouse gas emissions, but left ice sheets out of their calculations due to uncertainty.
“We are probably heading for the higher numbers within that range, possibly higher,“ said Stokes.
Satellite data has revealed that ice sheets with enough frozen water to lift oceans some 65 metres are far more sensitive to climate change than previously suspected.
Estimates of how much global warming it would take to push dwindling ice sheets past a point of no return, known as tipping points, have also shifted.
The 2015 Paris climate treaty calls for capping global warming at “well below” 2C, and 1.5C if possible.
About 125,000 years ago during the previous “interglacial” between ice ages, sea levels were two to nine metres higher than today despite a slightly lower average global temperature and significantly less CO2 in the air -- 287 parts per million, compared to 424 ppm today.
And if we go back to the last moment in Earth’s history with CO2 levels like today, some three million years ago, sea levels were 10-to-20 metres higher.
“If you want to slow sea level rise from ice sheets, you clearly have to cool back from present-day temperatures,“ Stokes told AFP.
“To slow sea level rise from ice sheets to a manageable level requires a long-term temperature goal that is close to +1C, or possibly lower.”
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