Scientists, including researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tulane University, analysed data from recent decades. The results are troubling, but also highly precise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since 1960, sea levels have risen by an average of 2.06 millimetres per year<\/strong>. Between 1993 and 2023, the pace had already increased to 3.41 mm per year<\/strong>. In the period from 2005 to 2023, it reached 3.94 mm per year<\/strong> \u2014 almost two times more than across the entire period studied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The single biggest culprit is not melting ice, as many had assumed, but the warming of the oceans<\/a><\/strong>. It accounts for 43 percent<\/strong> of the total long-term increase in sea level since 1960. The mechanism is simple: water, like most liquids, takes up more space when it warms. It expands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In second place comes the melting of mountain glaciers, which accounts for 27 percent.<\/strong> Next are the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, at 15 percent, and Antarctica, at 12 percent. Only three percent of the increase results from changes in the amount of water stored on land, for example in lakes, reservoirs, and groundwater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study also revealed an interesting pattern. Glaciers, which many had considered the main culprit behind rising water levels, became a significant threat only after 1993<\/strong>. Earlier, ocean warming and changes in land water storage dominated the picture. The findings, described<\/a> in the scientific journal Science Advances<\/em>, matter for another reason as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to new, more precise satellite data, improved corrections for land movement, and more accurate measurements of ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica, scientists have finally managed to close the budget with a very small residual error \u2014 just 0.17 mm per year. That is a major success after decades of uncertainty and conflicting estimates. We now have a much clearer picture of the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis was not a simple puzzle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
After 1993, the pace increased<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Scientists finally calculated the whole picture<\/h3>\n\n\n\n