How Soon Will The Seas Rise?

[Randy Zipser]

Quanta Magazine published an interesting article on October 20, 2025, about global sea-level rise. Although it will not affect us in our lives today, it could be something that our future generations may begin to experience toward the end of this century...

How Soon Will the Seas Rise? | Quanta Magazine

 

[Warren Faidley]

Darn, I was hoping for ocean front property here in Arizona before I'm gone.

 

[John Farley]

Interesting article, Randy. It notes the possibility of a number of scenarios, highlighting the extent to which we do not really know with much precision what is going to happen in the future.

I would quibble a little with the wording of your post, though. I know you mean that the kind of sea level rise they are talking about has not happened yet, but sea level rise has indeed been an ongoing trend for quite a while, as shown in the chart below. Now 20 cm (about 8 inches) on 140 years may not seem like a lot, but it is having flooding impacts in a lot of places with things such as king tides and storm surge levels. Miami, Outer Banks of NC, Venice, Italy are all examples. In many cases, of course, combined with other largely unrelated factors such as land subsidence and beach/dune erosion.

 

[Randy Zipser]

I would quibble a little with the wording of your post, though. I know you mean that the kind of sea level rise they are talking about has not happened yet, but sea level rise has indeed been an ongoing trend for quite a while

Correct, John. What I meant to imply was that the visible effects of the "ongoing" sea-level rise are not yet readily apparent nowadays to the visible eye, not that this phenomenon hasn't been ongoing since about 1900, as your chart above correctly illustrates. With the exception of astronomical spring tides and also "king tides" brought about by other factors, "normal" daily cyclical tides have not yet risen significantly enough globally that they could be proven to be caused by melting glaciers. This is a centuries-long process unfolding versus the 70+ year lifespan of the average human being. And some residents who live in coastal/island areas of the U.S. and around the world are unaware of, or unconcerned about, the sea-level rise phenomenon as they go about their daily lives.