Sea levels could rise one metre by 2100: German institute

Yahoo News 9 Oct 08;

Sea levels could rise one metre (3.3 feet) by 2100, a leading German research institute said Thursday, much more than even the most pessimistic projection by the UN climate panel.

"We should prepare for a rise of sea levels of one metre this century," said Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), which advises the German government on environmental policy.

The rates that glaciers in the Himalayas and the Greenland ice-sheet have doubled or even tripled in recent years, due partly to the increased greenhouse gas emissions by Chinese power stations, Schellnhuber said.

In February 2007, in the first volume of a landmark report, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted the oceans would rise by between 18 and 59 centimetres (seven and 23 inches) by 2100.