Sea level will rise even faster than expected so far

• UN report.The last five years have been the warmest ever recorded
• Jonathan Gregory interview "The sea is the thermometer of climate change"

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just published a new report focusing on the oceans and the cryosphere, whose conclusions confirm and intensify the forecast of an accelerated sea level rise.

The increase would reach, according to the calculations of the experts, about 84 centimeters from here to 2100, being able to reach up to 1.1 meters , if the greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate. In the longer term, estimates are even more worrisome, with an increase of up to 5.4 meters in 2300.

The projection is more pronounced than the one that the IPCC itself published in 2014, in its Fifth Evaluation Report, where a smaller increase was expected in 10 centimeters to the current one by 2100. The reason is that experts now consider the Antarctic ice sheet It will melt faster than previous estimates assumed.

In any case, the new report does coincide with the previous ones in that a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would significantly reduce the increase . According to the current calculations, in this scenario the increase would remain in almost half, until leaving it at 43 centimeters for 2100.

If emissions are not reduced, expert estimates speak of an increase in the level of the oceans from that date more than 10 times faster than the increase they experienced during the twentieth century.

The glaciers, in this scenario, would lose more than a third of their current mass, and many of them would be minimized or even cease to exist .

The report also warns that, along with the average height, the extremes will also increase, which means that level increases that usually occur every century would have an annual periodicity in the near future, the year 2050. Some island countries, the IPCC notes, would then become uninhabitable.

A threat and an opportunity

In parallel to the publication of the report, the magazine 'Science' has presented an analysis in which it is highlighted that, in addition to being a threat in a scenario of accelerated climate change, the oceans also hide several keys to mitigate the problem.

Algae, sea energy or ocean floor can become important resources to reduce emissions, scientists say. "The ocean is not only a victim of climate change, but also a powerful source of solutions," they explain.

An issue whose urgency, precisely, insists on the new report of the IPCC, which reflects " a disastrous future for the majority of life in the ocean and for the billions of people who depend on it", according to the commentary in 'Science'.

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