Sea Levels Rising At Alarming Rates

Where: Copenhagen, Denmark

March 12, 2009 : A scientific conference on climate change was held during the week in Copenhagen. Environmental experts there announced that sea levels are rising almost twice as fast as the United Nations had forecast just two years ago. Both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice caps have been melting at increasing rates. Scientists now say that sea levels will rise by anything between 50cm and 100cm by the year 2100. The 2007 United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had predicted that they would rise by between 18cm and 59cm by 2100.

One expert told the conference that sea levels have been rising more rapidly since 1993 than they were in earlier years. A close monitoring of the polar ice-caps has revealed how their behaviour is causing rising sea levels. The ice sheets are melting not only because of higher temperatures, but also because the water seeping through cracks and crevices is breaking them up.

In December 2009, politicians from around the world will meet in Copenhagen at the UN Climate Change Conference. They are expected to work out an international agreement to control climate change. A preparatory meeting to the Conference will begin in Bonn, Germany, in two weeks’ time. It is time the world came together to take some action to reverse these alarming climate changes.

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Readability: Grade 8 (13-14 year old children)
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Filed under: world news
Tags: #climate, #nations

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