Title: Climate Change: Global Sea Level | NOAA Climate.gov
Headings: Climate Change: Global Sea Level
Climate news, stories, images, & video (ClimateWatch Magazine)
Climate Change: Global Sea Level
Sea level since 1880
In some ocean basins, sea level has risen as much as 6-8 inches (15-20 centimeters) since the start of the satellite record in 1993.
Why sea level matters
What’s causing sea level to rise?
The pace of global sea level rise more than doubled from 1.4 mm per year throughout most of the twentieth century to 3.6 mm per year from 2006–2015.
Measuring sea level
Future sea level rise
About the data used in the interactive graph
References
More sea level data and information from NOAA and partners

Content: Photo by Amy McGovern. In the natural world, rising sea level creates stress on coastal ecosystems that provide recreation, protection from storms, and habitat for fish and wildlife, including commercially valuable fisheries. As seas rise, saltwater is also contaminating freshwater aquifers, many of which sustain municipal and agricultural water supplies and natural ecosystems. What’s causing sea level to rise? Global warming is causing global mean sea level to rise in two ways. First, glaciers and ice sheets worldwide are melting and adding water to the ocean. Second, the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms. A third, much smaller contributor to sea level rise is a decline in the amount of liquid water on land—aquifers, lakes and reservoirs, rivers, soil moisture. This shift of liquid water from land to ocean is largely due to groundwater pumping. Pedersen Glacier, at Aialik Bay in Alaska’s Kenai Mountains, in 1917 (left) and 2005 (right).