Rising seas and oceans: future prospects

Abstract

From 1901 to 2018, the average level of the Earth's seas and oceans rose by around 20 centimetres. According to the latest report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR6, 2021), this rise has become more rapid over the past 25 years. Moreover, the fact that the seas and oceans are responding to surface global warming with a lag suggests that the consequences of global warming on the marine portion of the globe will be persistent, for several centuries or even millennia, even if greenhouse gas emissions were to decline to a halt.