Jerry Mitrovica: Current Sea Level Rise is Anomalous. We've Seen Nothing Like it for the Last 10,000 Years

Jerry Mitrovica is a Professor of Geophysics at Harvard University in the USA. He is one of a group of scientists who have, in the last few decades, dramatically increased our understanding of sea level rise from the last ice age to present-day. As his lengthy list of peer-reviewed scientific publications will attest, he is one of the world's foremost experts on this topic.

The video below is a Washington DC talk he gave in 2011, which covers an excellent overview of sea level rise since the last ice age. In the lecture he takes contrarian talking points and uses them as teachable moments, demonstrating the following key points:

2mm of sea level rise per year, which is roughly the rate during the 20th Century, was anomalous, and is something the Earth has not seen for about 10,000 years - when it was in the midst of the last ice age deglaciation.

The current rate of sea level rise varies from place to place, however this is to be expected due to the location and presence of land-based ice sheets, and gravitational changes brought about by the disintegration of these present-day glaciers and ice sheets.

The rate of sea level rise has increased from the 20th century average of 2-2.5mm per year to over 3mm per year during the record of satellite-based observations (1993-present).

The future sea level rise projections of the 2007 IPCC report were too low. Current sea level rates are already at the uppermost range of projections, which reinforces this view.

For any reader interested in sea level change, it is well worth the half-hour investment of time.