Study: Sea-level projections from the 90s were spot on

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AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the September 5 edition of Climate In The News.

Transcript

00:00Today we'll cover two different climate stories.

00:02The first, the accuracy of sea level rise projections over the last 30 years and then

00:07turning to the ozone layer and how helping the ozone layer may actually cause more global

00:12warming.

00:13Brett, our first study, this is out of Tulane University, a study finding sea level projections

00:19over the last 30 years that were issued in the 90s have been actually quite accurate

00:23and have projected pretty spot on how much the sea has risen globally over the last 30

00:29years.

00:30Yeah, that's right.

00:31And projections from the early 90s, basically what they looked at was the three scenarios

00:37and the most likely scenario was just a touch higher than what has actually occurred.

00:42So that's great, great news.

00:44And these models back then were quite crude, so the modeling today is much better.

00:49So this gives us a lot of confidence for future forecasts.

00:53And I guess talk a bit, Brett, about how sea level rise is measured.

00:56We don't stick a ruler in the ocean.

00:58How do we know that the ocean has actually risen over the last 30 years?

01:01They have altimeters on satellites, so the satellites measure the height of the surface

01:07of the ocean.

01:08So that's how they measure it.

01:10And so what they found is the sea level surface globally has risen about three and two thirds

01:17inches since the early 1990s.

01:20But what is the key is the rate of the rise.

01:24During 1993, it was about 0.08 inches a year.

01:29Now it's 0.17 inches, so almost double.

01:32Double certainly a significant increase in the rate.

01:35Another important reason why monitoring sea level is very important to the NOAA and NASA

01:39satellite missions that are up there in space.

01:42Our second article from SciTech Daily discusses the ozone layer.

01:46We've heard about the ozone layer for many decades, Brett.

01:48It was sort of being depleted in the 70s.

01:50There was the Montreal Protocol of 1987 that helped to reduce certain chemicals that went

01:55into the atmosphere that caused the ozone layer to be depleted.

01:58Now the ozone layer is healing.

02:01Certainly good news from that perspective, but it has caused other issues from a global

02:04warming perspective.

02:05Yes.

02:06When you couple this with increased CO2, increased air pollution with the ozone layer, they're

02:11trapping even that much more heat in the lower atmosphere.

02:15Because with the increased pollution that is projected in the next decade or so, we're seeing

02:21more ground ozone, which is actually bad for our health.

02:24So couple that with the added ozone up above, this is going to lead to more heating.

02:30So it seems like that the impact of ozone may just continue to increase in terms of how

02:34that contributes to the warming going forward.

02:36Yeah.

02:37What they project is a 40% more warming than earlier projections by the year 2050, which is

02:44certainly not what we want to see, of course.

02:46And ozone may actually end up being the second biggest contributor to global warming behind

02:53CO2 by the year 2050, replacing methane.

02:56Wow.

02:57That's certainly a big shift there.

02:58Yeah.

02:59Obviously important to maintain the ozone layer.

03:00It's important for human health to help reduce skin cancer risk, but a significant contributor

03:05to global warming.

03:06Thank you, Brent.

03:07For other stories about climate and other information, you can find that at AccuWeather.com

03:10slash climate.

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