Aquarium of the Pacific

Aquarium Event

Global Warming, Sea Level Rise, and Coastal Retreat

Sea level has been rising for the past 18,000 years since the last Ice Age ended.

About 10,000,000 cubic miles of water were returned to the oceans as ice caps gradually melted and glaciers slowly retreated. This natural warming has been accelerated over the past 125 years due to the anthropogenic production of greenhouse gases and the resultant increased melting of ice and associated rise in sea level.

The majority of California’s population lives in coastal communities, resulting in shorelines and coastal bluffs that have been intensively developed. This contributes to coastal hazards such as sea levels rising. Find out how sea level rise might affect the California coast at this lecture by Dr. Gary Griggs, who is a professor of Earth Sciences and director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. This lecture covers coastal hazards, one of the top 10 ocean issues.

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