Catastrophic sea level rise of 5 centimeters per year is possible
From Climate Progress:
The prestigious journal Nature is publishing important new research on “Rapid sea-level rise and reef back-stepping at the close of the last interglacial highstand” (subs. req’d, abstract below). As Nature explains in a summary and author interview (subs. req’d):
Some consequences of climate change are already unfolding. Glaciers and ice sheets are melting, and sea levels are rising as a result. However, scientists aren’t certain by how much the rate of sea-level rise might accelerate; current predictions for increases until 2100 range from 0.3 centimetres to 1.4 centimetres per year. But Paul Blanchon, a geoscientist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Cancún, and his colleagues have learned that a sudden, catastrophic increase of more than 5 centimetres per year over a 50-year stretch is possible. On page 881, they describe their discovery that a sea-level jump of 2–3 metres already happened about 121,000 years ago. Blanchon tells Nature how and why it could recur [see below].
In other words, the Nature study says that during the during the last interglacial (the Eemian) evidence now suggests sea levels rose 20 inches per decade for five straight decades — a roughly 8-foot rise in a half century. The Eemian was some 2°C warmer than current global temperatures — we will exceed that over most of the second half of this century on our current emissions path (see “Intro to global warming impacts“). …
