Watch Your Coastal Property. Here Comes the Sea

A new study finds that the rate of the oceans’ rise is itself not only increasing—it’s going to start increasing exponentially.

Nags Head, North Carolina.

Photographer: John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images
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Climate scientists have long warned of a rise in sea level as global warming melts the world’s glaciers. But while the level has been increasing at about 3.5 millimeters a year, the rate of increase itself has fluctuated, leading some people to doubt the warnings and the broader impact of rising carbon emissions.

Fresh evidence, in a study published today in Scientific Reports, suggests the scientists were right, and that satellite measurements have been distorted by the eruption in 1991 of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines.