Straits Times 14 Mar 09;
THE latest research has shown that the sea level could rise 1m or more by 2100.
If greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced quickly and sustainably, low-lying coastal areas where one in 10 of the world's population lives will be hard hit, even in the best-case scenario, said experts.
According to the most recent satellite- and ground- based observations, sea levels have continued to rise at a rate of 3mm a year or more since 1993, well above the 20th- century average, said Dr John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research.
Speaking at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, he added that the oceans are continuing to warm and expand, the melting of mountain glaciers has increased and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are also contributing to sea level rise.
New insights reported include the loss of ice from the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, said the University of Copenhagen, one of the organisers of the event, in a statement.
These ice sheets are already contributing more and faster to sea level rise than anticipated, added Dr Eric Rignot, professor of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, and senior research scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
'If this trend continues, we are likely to witness the sea level rise 1m or more by year 2100,' he said.
Dr Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and co-chair of the congress session on sea level rise, commented: 'Different groups may come to slightly different projections, but differences in the details of the projections should not cloud the overall picture where even the lower end of the projections looks to have very serious effects.'
About 600 million people live in the low-lying areas that are in danger of being flooded.
The three-day climate change congress, which ended on Thursday, was attended by more than 2,000 participants.
CHANG AI-LIEN
