Reposted with permission from the Yale Climate Media Forum; by Zeke Hausfather

Among the most iconic image of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was that of coastlines and cities disappearing beneath rising seas. Sea level rise is certainly one of the more worrisome impacts of climate change, but the film’s disregard of the time scales involved in sea level rise may have led some to think that sea level rise on the order of 20 feet is probable in this century. Scientists cannot completely rule out such rapid sea level rise, but the general sense in the climate science community is that a lower but still worrying degree of sea level rise is more likely.

Estimates of climate change-driven sea level rise are rife with uncertainties. In addition to the indirect, but not insubstantial, impact of land subsidence in some areas, three primary factors [mehr...]