Sea levels are rising rapidly due to El Nino and climate change

On March 21, the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said that sea levels will rise 76mm in the period 2022 - 2023, nearly 4 times higher than in the period 2021 - 2022, due to the El Nino weather phenomenon. strong and the climate is warming.

The NASA-led analysis is based on more than 30 years of satellite observations, with the first launch in 1992 and the latest launch in 2020. Overall, sea levels have risen about 101 mm since since 1993. The rate of sea level rise is also faster, more than 2 times higher from over 1.7mm/year in 1993 to over 4.3mm/year at the present time.

Waves crash onto the boardwalk at Mission Beach in San Diego during a king tide event in December 2023. (Photo: scripps.ucsd.edu).

The direct cause of that sudden increase is the El Nino phenomenon , replacing the La Nina phenomenon from 2021 - 2022, when sea level rises about 2.03mm. Besides, the human factor is clearly also one of the causes of this situation.

Ms. Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, in charge of NASA's sea level monitoring team and ocean physics program in Washington, said that at the current rate, the global average sea level is on track to increase by 20cm between now and next year. 2050. This number will be twice as high in the next three decades compared to the previous century, making floods more frequent and catastrophic in the future than today.

Sea level researcher Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said that during years of El Nino, large amounts of rain that normally fall on land will flow into the ocean, causing temporary sea level levels. high time.  

According to NASA's JPL sea level monitoring team leader Ben Hamlington, long-term datasets such as 30 years of satellite records allow the research team to distinguish short-term impacts on sea level, like El Nino with trends showing how far sea levels are rising. Technological innovations have made measurements over the years more accurate.