The world rose faster than last year’s forecast, NASA said.
Sea levels rose faster than expected worldwide in 2024, according to new research from the US NASA Space Agency.
“With 2024 being the warmest record year, Earth’s expanding oceans have traced the lawsuit and reached the highest level in 30 years,” said NASA’s Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, Head of Physical Oceanography, Integrated Earth System Observatory on Thursday.
NASA sea level researcher Josh Willis said the global ocean growth last year was “higher than expected,” revealing that “the rate of rise is faster and faster” while changes occur every year.
A NASA-led study of information procured via the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite shows that sea level rise rate was 0.59cm (0.23 inches) per year last year.
Global sea levels rose faster than expected in 2024, according to a NASA-led analysis. Details: https://t.co/g85gaglukm pic.twitter.com/uyifc6ssou
– NASA (@NASA) March 13, 2025
According to NASA, satellite recordings began in 1993, and over the 30 years leading up to 2023, the sea level rise has more than doubled, bringing the global average sea level to a total of 10cm (3.93 inches).
Sea level rise is one of the consequences of human-induced climate change, with the ocean rising along with the rise in the average surface temperature of the Earth. This is a change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
NASA said the trend in recent years showed additional water from the land as ice sheets and glaciers were the biggest contributors and accounted for two-thirds of sea level rise.
However, in 2024, the increase in sea level rise was largely driven by the thermal expansion of water – as seawater expands as it warms, this accounts for about two-thirds of the increase.
The United Nations has warned of the threat to the vast numbers of people living along islands and coastlines due to rising sea levels, as low-lying coastal regions in India, Bangladesh, China and the Netherlands are flagging them as areas of particular concern, and island states in the Pacific and Indian Seas are flagging them.
