Multi-century global and regional sea-level rise commitments from cumulative greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades
Nauels, A.; Nicholls, Z.; Möller, T.; Hermans, T.H.J.; Mengel, M.; Kloenne, U.; Smith, C.; Slangen, A.B.A.; Palmer, M.D. (2025). Multi-century global and regional sea-level rise commitments from cumulative greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15(11): 1198-1204. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02452-5
In: Nature Climate Change. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 1758-678X; e-ISSN 1758-6798, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Nauels, A.
- Nicholls, Z.
- Möller, T.
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- Hermans, T.H.J., more
- Mengel, M.
- Kloenne, U.
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- Smith, C.
- Slangen, A.B.A., more
- Palmer, M.D.
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| Abstract |
Sea levels respond to climate change on timescales from decades to millennia. To isolate the sea-level contribution of historical and near-term GHG emissions, we use a dedicated scenario and modelling framework to quantify global and regional sea-level rise commitments of twenty-first century cumulative emissions. Under current climate policies, emissions until 2050 lock in 0.3 m (likely range 0.2–0.5 m) more global mean sea-level rise by 2300 than historical emissions until 2020. This additional commitment would grow to 0.8 m (0.5–1.4 m) for emissions until 2090, of which 0.6 m (0.4–1.1 m) could be avoided under very stringent mitigation. Resulting regional commitments would be around 10% higher than the global signal for the vulnerable Pacific region, mainly due to higher relative Antarctic contributions. Our work shows that multi-century sea-level rise commitments are strongly controlled by mitigation decisions in coming decades. |
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