Date published: 2008/09/05
The BBC says:
Sea levels globally are very unlikely to rise by more than 2m (7ft) this century, scientists conclude.
Major increases would have to be fuelled by a faster flow of glaciers on the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets.
But writing in the journal Science, a US team concludes that a rise of 2m would need glaciers to reach speeds that are "physically untenable".
However, even increases substantially less than 2m would cause major issues for many societies, they say.
...
[T]his latest research tallies broadly with the conclusions of other groups that have examined the question using different approaches.In its landmark assessment of climate change published last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that sea level rise would probably fit in the range between 28 and 43cm over the century, although 59cm was a possibility.
The current rate is about 3mm per year.
But the IPCC specifically excluded the mechanism able to produce the biggest amounts of water quickly - acceleration in the flow of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the world's two major ice masses that would between them raise sea levels by about 70m if they completely melted.
Of course this all depends on what happens over the next few decades. Now 3mm per year equates to 30cm per century, so the rate would have to get a lot faster to even get near 2m (but needless to say, this could easily happen).
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