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NASA: Sea Level May Rise Due to Extreme “Seesaw”

“Dueling climate cycles” may bring a sea level increase

A recent report from NASA detailed how natural cycles in the seas are causing — and may increasingly cause — sea level fluctuations that are above the norm.

NASA said that “dueling climate cycles” across the globe cause a type of “seesaw” effect that causes the seas to, in essence, tip back and forth. This tipping motion results in a high side of the sea and, of course, a low side of the sea that alternate over time.

The America continents are currently experiencing the lower sea level in the seesaw effect, while Asia is currently on the high side of the tip.

Swings are intensifying

In the past three decades, the seesaw effect intensified. And these more extreme fluctuations brought sea-level variations of more than triple what they have seen in the past.

A NASA study has found that they interaction between two separate climate cycles could be resulting in the observed intensified fluctuations. Specifically, scientists found that two climate cycles — the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation — can “either reinforce or dampen each other, directly affecting the variability of sea level across the Pacific.”

In the last 10 years of the 20th century, sea level fluctuation averaged approximately 6 inches, which is an estimated five times higher than the global sea level rise during that decade.

These intensifying swings, coupled with [link url=”https://amuedge.com/study-sea-level-is-rising-at-an-alarming-rate/” title=”rising sea level from melting glacial ice“] could spell big problems for coastal communities around the world in the coming years.

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