The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image. Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on May 12, 2014. Six glac
The Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is seen in this undated NASA image. Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on May 12, 2014. Six glaciers including the Thwaites Glacier, eaten away from below by a warming of sea waters around the frozen continent, were flowing fast into the Amundsen Sea, according to the report based partly on satellite radar measurements from 1992 to 2011. Reuters/NASA

Ahead of the Climate Change Summit scheduled to be held in Paris in December 2015, a lot of research is being done to predict the impact and the resulting consequences of the rising sea levels across the world.

Adding to the list of climate-associated changes that the world needs to worry about, NASA has claimed that the popular climate models do not take into account the breaking of the ice sheet and glacier, and the actual impact of such a scenario could be more dreadful than ever thought.

In a press briefing held on Aug. 26, NASA officials said that the sea level is already rising across the globe. However, the question is about the rate at which it is expected to rise in the future.

According to the lead scientist for NASA's Sea Level Change Team at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Steve Nerem, about one-third of the rise in the level of the sea is associated with the warming of the oceans. This results in an expansion of the water, which is similar to the expansion of the mercury in a thermometer.

However, the remaining two-thirds of the rise in the global sea level are a resultant consequence of the melting of the ice sheets and glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland. Nerem further said that the latest data collected by the NASA satellites show that nearly 1.9 millimetres of sea level rises in a year due to an increase in the mass of the ocean.

“Given what we know now about how the ocean expands as it warms and how ice sheets and glaciers are adding water to the seas, it’s pretty certain we are locked into at least 3 feet of sea level rise, and probably more,” said Nerem in a new release.

“But we don't know whether it will happen within a century or somewhat longer.”

The rising sea levels have already started to impact a number of countries and their coastal regions around the world. The streets of Florida, for example, have started to get flooded during the high tides, which was once considered as a normal phenomenon.

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