Rate of Sea Level Rise 'Has Doubled Since 1993,' Report Finds

One of the most alarming findings mentioned in the World Meteorological Organization's 2022 report, released Sunday, is that the "rate of sea level rise has doubled since 1993." They added: "The past two and a half years alone account for 10 percent of the overall rise in sea level since satellite measurements started nearly 30 years ago." From a report: One of the main causes of the accelerating pace of sea level rise is melting glaciers. According to the WMO, "2022 took an exceptionally heavy toll on glaciers in the European Alps, with initial indications of record-shattering melt. The Greenland ice sheet lost mass for the 26th consecutive year and it rained (rather than snowed) there for the first time in September." Last week, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued a report on endangered glaciers finding that one-third of the glaciers in UNESCO World Heritage sites are expected to disappear by 2050. The remaining two-thirds can be saved if greenhouse gas emissions are cut quickly and deeply enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the report concluded. In 2022, the average global temperature is estimated to be about 1.15C above the 1850-1900 average. This actually could have been worse. For the first time in a century, La Nina, a weather pattern that causes cool water to rise to the surface in the Pacific Ocean -- leading to cooler-than-usual weather -- occurred for the third year in a row. The WMO estimates that this means 2022 will be the fifth- or sixth-hottest year on record, rather than the hottest ever. But the trend toward ever-higher temperatures remains clear. "The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle of climate chaos," said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in response to the report's release. "As the World Meteorological Organization shows so clearly, change is happening with catastrophic speed, devastating lives and livelihoods on every continent. Glacier melt records are themselves melting away, jeopardizing water security for whole continents. We must answer the planet's distress signal with action -- ambitious, credible climate action. COP27 must be the place, and now must be the time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.