How Much Will Sea Level Rise?

Sea Level Rise

As temperatures surge, sea levels rise with it. The two major causes are:

  • THERMAL EXPANSION: Thermal expansion of the oceans because heat makes water expands.
  • GLACIER MELTING: Loss of land-based ice and glacier melting

In fact, it’s projected to rise at even greater rate this century. Let’s take a look at some of these global projections.

How much will sea levels rise?

Since 1850, global mean sea level has been steadily rising. In the chart below, the red line represents sea levels from observed tide gauge data. After the year 2000, sea level rise is projected to spike.

The purple, blue, and orange areas show sea-level rise projections. But it has three levels of increase because of its uncertainty after 2050.

These climate models are derived from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007)

sea level change projection

How will glacier melt contribute to sea level rise

Earth holds about 326 million trillion gallons (326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons) of water. About 6,846,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (2.1%) of Earth’s water is in glaciers.


Glaciers fluctuate in water availability the most with ice ages and global warming. As temperatures surge, sea levels rise with it. This is because melting ice sheets and glaciers add to Earth’s total water volume.

Every year, sea ice grows in the winter. Then, it shrinks in the summer. But in March 2019, Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum. It wasn’t a record low. But it continued a downward trend of sea ice maximums and minimums.

present vs future sea level

What is the future of sea level rise?


How do we slow down the massive supply of water? First, we reverse deforestation to capture more carbon from the atmosphere.

Second, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help stabilize temperature. Finally, we all have to consider the environment in our daily lives.

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