Colorado study wilts idea of 20-foot rise in sea levels
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published September 5, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Predictions that sea levels will rise 20 feet in the next century are wildly exaggerated, but a more realistic 4- to 6-foot rise still could put homes under water for hundreds of millions of people.
That's the conclusion of Colorado scientist Tad Pfeffer, whose work on the subject appears in today's Science magazine.
Pfeffer, a fellow at the University of Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, found that a 20-foot rise is nearly impossible, which could dramatically change forecast scenarios.
He said global warming "is very real," but that for melting ice and glaciers to raise the sea level 20 feet would require a locomotion rate several times faster than has ever been seen before.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that sea levels could rise 3 to 6 feet in the next century. That means that cities along every major river delta on the globe could be under water by 2100.
"It would be a terrible mistake if our analysis leads anyone to conclude we can forget about this problem," Pfeffer said.
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