Sea levels wouldn't rise by 82 cms by century end, say scientists

London, Feb 22 (ANI): The author of a study that claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century, is now saying that the true estimate is still unknown, which seems like the fall out of the goof-up on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers.

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century.

At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results".

The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher.

Many scientists criticized the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea level could rise more.

Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Siddall said that he did not know whether the retracted paper's estimate of sea level rise was an overestimate or an underestimate.

According to a report in the Guardian, announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said, "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science."

He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published.

"Retraction is a regular part of the publication process. Science is a complicated game and there are set procedures in place that act as checks and balances," he said. (ANI)