this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
12 points (92.9% liked)

Global News

3910 readers
281 users here now

What is global news?

Something that happened or was uncovered recently anywhere in the world. It doesn't have to have global implications. Just has to be informative in some way.


Post guidelines

Title formatPost title should mirror the news source title.
URL formatPost URL should be the original link to the article (even if paywalled) and archived copies left in the body. It allows avoiding duplicate posts when cross-posting.
[Opinion] prefixOpinion (op-ed) articles must use [Opinion] prefix before the title.
Country prefixCountry prefix can be added to the title with a separator (|, :, etc.) where title is not clear enough from which country the news is coming from.


Rules

This community is moderated in accordance with the principles outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which emphasizes the right to freedom of opinion and expression. In addition to this foundational principle, we have some additional rules to ensure a respectful and constructive environment for all users.

1. English onlyTitle and associated content has to be in English.
2. No social media postsAvoid all social media posts. Try searching for a source that has a written article or transcription on the subject.
3. Respectful communicationAll communication has to be respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences.
4. InclusivityEveryone is welcome here regardless of age, body size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender identity and expression, education, socio-economic status, nationality, personal appearance, race, caste, color, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
5. Ad hominem attacksAny kind of personal attacks are expressly forbidden. If you can't argue your position without attacking a person's character, you already lost the argument.
6. Off-topic tangentsStay on topic. Keep it relevant.
7. Instance rules may applyIf something is not covered by community rules, but are against lemmy.zip instance rules, they will be enforced.


Companion communities

Icon generated via LLM model | Banner attribution


If someone is interested in moderating this community, message @brikox@lemmy.zip.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Paris (AFP) โ€“ Rising seas will severely test humanity's resilience in the second half of the 21st century and beyond, even if nations defy the odds and cap global warming at the ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius target, researchers said Tuesday.

The pace at which global oceans are rising has doubled in three decades, and on current trends will double again by 2100 to about one centimetre per year, they reported in a study.

"Limiting global warming to 1.5C would be a major achievement" and avoid many dire climate impacts, lead author Chris Stokes, a professor at Durham University in England, told AFP.

"But even if this target is met," he added, "sea level rise is likely to accelerate to rates that are very difficult to adapt to."

Absent protective measures such as sea walls, an additional 20 centimetres (7.8 inches) of sea level rise -- the width of a letter-size sheet of paper -- by 2050 would cause some $1 trillion in flood damage annually in the world's 136 largest coastal cities, earlier research has shown.

Some 230 million people live on land within one metre (3.2 feet) of sea level, and more than a billion reside within 10 metres.

Sea level rise is driven in roughly equal measure by the disintegration of ice sheets and mountain glaciers, as well as the expansion of warming oceans, which absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat due to climate change.

Averaged across 20 years, Earth's surface temperature is currently 1.2C above pre-industrial levels, already enough to lift the ocean watermark by several metres over the coming centuries, Stokes and colleagues noted in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The world is on track to see temperatures rise 2.7C above that benchmark by the end of the century.

In a review of scientific literature since the last major climate assessment by the UN-mandated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Stokes and his team focused on the growing contribution of ice sheets to rising seas.

In 2021, the IPCC projected "likely" sea level rise of 40 to 80 centimetres by 2100, depending on how how quickly humanity draws down greenhouse gas emissions, but left ice sheets out of their calculations due to uncertainty.

The picture has become alarmingly more clear since then.

"We are probably heading for the higher numbers within that range, possibly higher," said Stokes.

The scientist and his team looked at three baskets of evidence, starting with what has been observed and measured to date.

Satellite data has revealed that ice sheets with enough frozen water to lift oceans some 65 metres are far more sensitive to climate change than previously suspected.

The amount of ice melting or breaking off into the ocean from Greenland and West Antarctica, now averaging about 400 billion tonnes a year, has quadrupled over the last three decades, eclipsing runoff from mountain glaciers.

Estimates of how much global warming it would take to push dwindling ice sheets past a point of no return, known as tipping points, have also shifted.

"We used to think that Greenland wouldn't do anything until the world warmed 3C," said Stokes. "Now the consensus for tipping points for Greenland and West Antarctica is about 1.5C."

The 2015 Paris climate treaty calls for capping global warming at "well below" 2C, and 1.5C if possible.

The scientists also looked at fresh evidence from the three most recent periods in Earth's history with comparable temperatures and atmospheric levels of CO2, the main driver of global warming.

About 125,000 years ago during the previous "interglacial" between ice ages, sea levels were two to nine metres higher than today despite a slightly lower average global temperature and significantly less CO2 in the air -- 287 parts per million, compared to 424 ppm today.

A slightly warmer period 400,000 ago with CO2 concentrations at about 286 ppm saw oceans 6-to-13 metres higher.

And if we go back to the last moment in Earth's history with CO2 levels like today, some three million years ago, sea levels were 10-to-20 metres higher.

Finally, scientists reviewed recent projections of how ice sheets will behave in the future.

"If you want to slow sea level rise from ice sheets, you clearly have to cool back from present-day temperatures," Stokes told AFP.

"To slow sea level rise from ice sheets to a manageable level requires a long-term temperature goal that is close to +1C, or possibly lower."

top 1 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 5 hours ago

Its funny to me that they are even still talking 1.5c. Might as well talk about limiting to 1c.