When ice shelves already largely in the water break off from the continental ice mass, this does not have much
direct effect on sea level per se.
Even seemingly small changes in global temperature have far -
reaching effects on sea level, atmospheric circulation, and weather patterns around the globe.
The arctic ice is already floating — melting it has no
net effect on sea level, since it's already displacing its mass in water.
West Antarctica has warmed much more than scientists had thought over the last half century, new research suggests, an ominous finding given that the huge ice sheet there may be vulnerable to long - term collapse, with potentially
drastic effects on sea levels.
Although the disappearance of the ice around Antarctica will have only a
marginal effect on sea levels, it is important because it was predicted to be one of the first signs of global warming.
Greenhouse gases are already having an
accelerating effect on sea level rise, but the impact has so far been masked by the cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, according to a new study led by the...
The retreat of these glaciers in itself will have a
negligible effect on sea level, since most of the ice that has retreated was in the water already.
There also seemed to be some El
Niño effect on sea levels off the Southeast coast, which Hamlington said could be due to increased storminess and related storm surge.
Many recent studies (e.g. Hansen & Sato) have claimed that future rise in global average temperature (GAT) will create a much
greater effect on sea level than IPCC AR4 predicts.
Also, for Bangladesh in particular, the amount of geoengineering that you would have to do to have a near -
term effect on sea level would be a great deal.
The project, funded through the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, aims to identify long period sea level changes, «with particular emphasis on the enhanced
greenhouse effect on sea level».
Scientists find evidence of vast «storage tanks» of water deep below the melting Greenland ice sheet that could have a
major effect on sea level rise.
The melting characteristics of such a huge ice sheet — spanning 656,000 square miles (1.7 million square kilometers)-- is important for various reasons, particularly its
potential effect on sea levels.
This discussion suggests three important conclusions: (i) the effect of changes in terrestrial water storage on sea level may be considerable; (ii) the
net effect on sea level could be of either sign, and (iii) the rate has increased over the last few decades (in the assessment of Gornitz et al. (1997) from near zero at the start of the century to 0.8 mm / yr in 1990).
This would have
an effect on sea level, but not much effect on air temperatures.
So Victor's contention that CO2 has
no effect on sea level is highly unlikely.
One unwelcome side effect might be the acidification of the oceans, but
the effects on sea levels from melting glaciers caused by global warming would be worse.
«Not long ago, we wondered about
the effect on sea levels if Earth's major glaciers were to start retreating,» said Professor Rignot.
Since they are already floating, when they melt, they have little direct
effect on sea level.