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Coastal sea levels are already up to a foot higher than many scientists believe, according to an alarming new assessment from researchers in the Netherlands.
The findings have concerning implications for hundreds of millions living in coastal communities around the world, including nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population.
Should the relative sea level rise by three feet, tens of millions more people than previously estimated would be under threat under newly-measured baseline coastal water heights.
And those new measurements also show that the water Southeast Asian and Indo-Pacific nations - which have already seen the most severe impacts of climate change-driven sea level rise - is up to 6.5 feet higher than models have estimated, the researchers say.
Sea level rise not only stresses infrastructure and forces migration, but worsens storm surge and flooding during hurricanes that are expected to be more frequent in a rapidly warming world.
"Our study reveals fundamental misalignment issues of sea level and coastal elevation throughout a wide body of scientific literature, which introduces errors and creates large uncertainties in the vast majority of coastal hazard and sea level rise and/or relative sea level rise impact assessments," the researchers at Wageningen University & Research wrote.
The study assessed 385 studies, finding that 99 per cent "do not use sea level measurements, combine them incorrectly or fail to adequately describe their methodologies."
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