News Tonight Africa

New studies suggest that sea levels on Earth have been rising at a much faster speed than they have in the last about 2,800 years. According to the studies conducted in the past, the acceleration is due to global warming caused due to human activity and not only natural phenomenon.

An international group of scientists dug into two dozen sites globally to note down the rising and falling seas over a long period.

The fastest sea level rise was nearly 1 to 1.5 inches in 100 years, until the 1880s and the world’s industrialization. At that time, global sea level didn’t become much higher or lower than 3 inches above or below the 2,000-year average.

In the 20th century, the seas worldwide rose about 5.5 inches. The rate has gone up to a foot per century since 1993. On Monday, two different studies, appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggested that the world’s oceans will go up between 11 to 52 inches by 2100. The sea level rise will depend on the quantity of heat-trapping gas expelled by industries and vehicles on the planet.

Rutgers earth and planetary sciences professor and lead author of the study who analyzed sea levels over the last three millennia, Bob Kopp, said, “There’s no question that the 20th century is the fastest. It’s because of the temperature increase in the 20th century which has been driven by fossil fuel use”.

Study co-author Ben Horton, a Rutgers marine scientist, said to determine previous sea levels and rates of rise and fall, scientists get indulged into a ‘geological detective story’.

The scientists travelled across the world to observe salt marshes and other coastal locations. They used various hints to know what the sea level was at distinct times.