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sea level rise

Because the ocean stores heat and releases it back to the atmosphere only slowly, the energy already accumulated implies continued warming and continued sea level rise for years to come even under scenarios where greenhouse gas emissions are reduced relatively quickly. This is sometimes described as committed warming: a lag between reducing emissions and seeing the full climate system respond. It does not mean emissions reductions are futile — the rate and eventual extent of further warming still depend heavily on future emissions — but it does mean that some further warming and sea level rise over the coming decade is already effectively locked in by heat already stored in the ocean.

• The upper ocean (roughly the top 700 metres) has warmed measurably across every ocean basin monitored.
• Deeper ocean layers are also absorbing heat, though the signal there is smaller and takes longer to detect with confidence.
• Because the trend is driven by long-term energy accumulation rather than short-term weather variability, it has shown fewer of the flat or cooling years sometimes seen in surface records.
• Warmer ocean water expands in volume, making thermal expansion one of the largest contributors to observed sea level rise, alongside land ice melt.