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Global Sea Levels Will Continue to Rise as Climate Continues to Warm, NASA Analysis

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NASA released a new analysis projecting global sea levels to rise on a regular basis, as they already have been, indefinitely.

According to Space.com, NASA unveiled the new report, titled "Rising Seas: Frontiers of Climate Science," at a news conference Wednesday. NASA correlated these projections to the globe's warming climate and melting ice sheets.

"Sea level rise is one of the most visible signatures of our changing climate, and rising seas have profound impacts on our nation, our economy and all of humanity," Michael Freilich, director of NASA's Earth Science Division at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., said at the news conference. "By combining space-borne direct measurements of sea level with a host of other measurements from satellites and sensors in the oceans themselves, NASA scientists are not only tracking changes in ocean heights but are also determining the reasons for those changes."

Since 1992 the world's yearly average sea level rise has been about three inches, though the researchers noted levels varied by region. For example, the western United States has seen sea levels drop over this span, but it is a trend NASA projects will reverse.

"Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it's pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more," Steve Nerem, the Sea Level Change Team's chief at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a press release. "But we don't know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer."

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