NASA confirms sea level rising faster! The analysis led by NASA is based on more than 30 years of satellite observations. In fact, global warming has been analyzed continuously in recent decades, with the launch of the first satellite in 1992 and the most recent in 2020.
Overall, sea levels have risen by about four inches since 1993. Furthermore, the rate of rise has also accelerated, more than doubling from 0.07 inches per year in 1993 to the current rate of 0.17 inches per year.
“Current rates of acceleration mean we are on track to add another 20 centimeters to global mean sea level by 2050,” said Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, director of NASA’s sea level change team and ocean physics program in Washington.
This would represent double the change over the next three decades compared to the previous century. As a result, it would create a future where floods are much more frequent and catastrophic than they are today.
El Niño influences sea level
The immediate cause of the increase is the climate effect El Niño. This is because he replaced La Nina from 2021 to 2022, when sea levels rose about 0.08 inches.
El Niño involves warmer-than-average ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific.
“In El Niño years, much of the rain that normally falls on land ends up in the ocean, which temporarily raises sea levels,” said Josh Willis, a sea level researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
But there is also a clear human influence evident in the underlying trend of acceleration.
“Long-term datasets like this 30-year satellite record allow us to differentiate between short-term effects on sea level, like El Niño, and trends that tell us where sea level is going,” said Ben Hamlington, leader of NASA’s sea level change team at JPL.
Technological innovations have brought greater precision to measurements over the years. For example, radar altimeters reflect microwaves off the sea surface. In this way, they record the time it takes for the signal to return to the satellite, as well as the strength of the return signal.
They also check their data with other sources such as tide gauges and satellite measurements of atmospheric water vapor and Earth’s gravity field.
Source: Atrevida
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