The rise of waters, in 2024, is more important than the prediction made by NASA. Reason is not only the melting of ice. Climate change has many forms.
« The increase observed in 2024 was more important than expected “Warn John Willis. This researcher specializing in the rose of waters works at NASA, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “” Each year is a little different, but what is clear is that the ocean continues to go up and the pace of this climb is faster and faster. »
In figures: the rise of waters in 2024 was 0.59 centimeter. The early rate was however 0.43 centimeters (which was already a lot at the ocean scale). These new NASA works, allowed thanks to satellite surveillance and shared in March 2025, deliver a new indicator on the acceleration of climate change and one of its most important effects.
Where does the rise in waters come from?
Two thirds of the rise of waters usually come from the melting of glaciers and the ice cap. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the only cause. The remaining third comes from thermal expansion of water. Indeed, as the planet warms up, a huge part (90 %) of the resulting heat is absorbed by the oceans. The water temperature is not content to increase: water expands, which generates an expansion. As if the sea “swept” under the effect of heat, in short.
In 2024, the distribution between the cast iron and the dilation was reversed: two thirds of the elevation of the sea level came from the thermal expansion of the water. Except that the latter is proportional to warming, and this is where the rub is: ” The year 2024 being the warmest ever recorded, the expansion oceans follow the movement and reach their highest level in three decades “, Specifies Nadya Vinogradova SHIFFER, head of physical oceanography programs within the space agency. In 2024, an increase of 1.55 degrees was actually found above the pre-industrial levels-a record.
This does not mean that the melting of ice slows down or stabilizes. On the contrary, it would also accelerate on its side, as a study published in February 2025 still recently showed. The rise of waters therefore faced, in 2024, with two cumulative phenomena in acceleration.
The effect of climate change on the oceans is multiple. On the one hand, there is the threat to all the marine ecosystems and the life forms that live there. On the other hand, there is the rise of waters and the danger that this represents for human populations, a point of humanitarian attention of the leading since climatic refugees are a present and future reality. Europe and France are concerned.
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