NASA scientist Kate Marvel lays out the unpleasant realities of rising seas

NASA data shows the ocean's gradual, inexorable rise.

"There's a lot of things we're really sure about," NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel said Sunday at the 10th annual Social Good Summit on Sept. 22.

"We're sure sea levels are rising," emphasized Marvel, a researcher at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Scientists are also sure that greenhouse gases — notably carbon dioxide — are trapping heat on the planet, downpours are getting more intense, and rising temperatures are driving increasingly extreme Western wildfires.

Yet sea level rise (often) isn't as conspicuous as Earth's dying glaciers, historic droughts, and plumes of smoke from escalating wildfires. When we peer down into the water sloshing against a harbor's walls, the ever-shifting tides might obscure the sea's creeping rise. Still, as the planet's relentlessly warming oceans expand and great ice sheets melt into the seas, the saltwater incessantly rises. Read more...