By Karin Strohecker
VIENNA (Reuters) - Melting glaciers, disappearing icesheets and warming water could lift sea levels by as much as1.5 metres (4.9 feet) by the end of this century, displacingtens of millions of people, new research showed on Tuesday.
Presented at a European Geosciences Union conference, theresearch forecasts a rise in sea levels three times higher thanthat predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) last year. The U.N. climate panel shared the 2007 NobelPeace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.
Svetlana Jevrejeva of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratoryin Britain said the estimate was based on a new model allowingaccurate reconstruction of sea levels over the past 2,000years.
"For the past 2,000 years, the sea level was very stable,"she told journalists on the margins of the Vienna meeting.
But the pace at which sea levels are rising isaccelerating, and they will be 0.8-1.5 metres higher by nextcentury, researchers including Jevrejeva said in a statement.
Sea levels rose 2 cm in the 18th century, 6 cm in the 19thcentury and 19 cm last century, she said, adding: "It seemsthat rapid rise in the 20th century is from melting icesheets".
Scientists fiercely debate how much sea levels will rise,with the IPCC predicting increases of between 18 cm and 59 cm.
"The IPCC numbers are underestimates," said Simon Holgate,also of the Proudman Laboratory.
The researchers said the IPCC had not accounted for icedynamics -- the more rapid movement of ice sheets due to meltwater which could markedly speed up their disappearance andboost sea levels.
But this effect is set to generate around one-third of thefuture rise in sea levels, according to Steve Nerem from theUniversity of Colorado in the United States.
"There is a lot of evidence out there that we will seearound one metre in 2100," said Nerem, adding the rise wouldnot be uniform around the globe, and that more research wasneeded to determine the effects on single regions.
Scientists might debate the levels, but they agree on whowill be hardest hit -- developing nations in Africa and Asiawho lack the infrastructural means to build up flood defences.They include countries like Bangladesh, almost of all of whoseland surface is a within a metre of the current sea level.
"If (the sea level) rises by one metre, 72 million Chinesepeople will be displaced, and 10 percent of the Vietnamesepopulation," said Jevrejeva.
(Reporting by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Catherine Evans)
