Sea levels on Earth are rising several times faster than they have in the past 2,800 years and are accelerating because of human-caused global warming, according to new studies.

An international team of scientists dug into two dozen locations across the globe, including a salt marsh and coastal wetland in Newfoundland, to chart gently rising and falling seas over centuries and millennia. Until the 1880s and the world's industrialization, the fastest seas rose was about three to four centimetres (1 to 1.5 inches) a century, plus or minus a bit. During that time global sea level really didn't get much higher or lower than eight centimetres (three inches)  above or below the 2,000-year average.

But in the 20th century the world's seas rose 14 centimetres (5.5 inches). Since 1993 the rate has soared to 30 centimetres (a foot) per century. And two different studies published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said by 2100 that the world's oceans will rise between 28 to 131 centimetres (11 to 52 inches), depending on how much heat-trapping gas Earth's industries and vehicles expel.

David Fuller's view

Most of us do not want to believe this because it is too frightening.  However, it makes sense to me that the climate is warming and I see more evidence to confirm rather than refute this view.  I hope I am wrong or that technology provides a solution, because the long-term economic consequences of rising sea levels are appalling.   

(See also: Bill Gates Q&A on Climate Change: ‘We Need a Miracle’ – This is an excellent article and video, in my opinion.)