The world mean sea level increased by around 8 to 9 inches from 1880. Most of this increase has been observed in the past two and half decades. The increasing water level happens because of meltwaters emerging from glaciers. Further, glaciers turn into water with all forms of thermal increase. In 2020, the world average sea level stood at 91.3 mm, approximately 3.6 inches more than in 1993. This made it the highest yearly mean value since 1993. The global mean water level in oceans increased by 0.14 inches annually from 2006 through 2015. This was 2.5 times the mean value which is 0.06 inches. The value is approximated to be rise for about 0.3 meters above the 2000 mark. This would also happen even if the greenhouse gas emissions do happen to follow a common pathway. There is a connection between sea-level rise and climatic change worldwide, and the link is that an increase in temperatures in the environment leads to a rise in sea levels.
Climate changes, especially global warming, are the main cause of the rising sea level. The climatic conditions and changes like increasing temperature because of increased carbon in the air have caused the glaciers and ice sheets to melt. The melting of these two continues to add water to the oceans. Further, as the water warms, the oceans swell because of their expansion. Water is a matter, and as the matter is heated by the increasing temperatures, it expands. There are other contributors, which include a decrease in the amount of liquid water while on land. This liquid water found on earth consists of lakes, rivers, and others like aquifers. The liquid water increases to the oceans as a result of groundwater pumping.
The significant impacts are that in urban areas and along the global coastlines, there is an increasing sea level which has continued to threaten the infrastructure. This is risky, especially for several parts of the country, such as roads, bridges, subways, and water supplies. The second impact is that higher background water leads to deadly and destructive storms like Hurricane Katrina. Such destructive storms lead to loss of wealth and unnecessary consequences such as causing deaths of people, leaving people homeless and jobless too. Some people work at the beaches, and a rise in the sea levels makes the coastal areas inaccessible, thus making them unemployed (Lindsey). The other impact is that rising sea level increases the stress on the coastal lines, which acts as habitats for fish, different forms of wildlife, with some comprising commercially habited fisheries. As sea levels increase, saltwater on land increases which makes freshwater impure.
People can adapt to the climatic changes and the rise in sea levels through creating the coastal and laying out strategies such as hills instead of leaving it flat. The people need to expect that there would happen some forms of storms at some levels, sweeping away and saltwater all over. The people can also adapt to the saltwater from the seas by coming up with filtration and decantation strategies to obtain pure water that is non-salty. These present the methods people can use when adapting to the current situation.
In summary, there is an increase in seawater because of the changes in climatic conditions. An increase in temperature leads to an increase in the melting of the icebergs, which add water to the seas. This leads to an additional volume of water, thus increasing in sea levels. Some of the impacts include increased salty water on the environment, destruction of infrastructure, the occurrence of storms. However, human beings can adapt to these changes by considering the ways such as decantation and filtration of salty water to obtain clean water.
image: https://thebulletin.org/2018/05/how-much-and-how-fast-will-global-sea-level-rise/
