The East Mediterranean rose 15 cm in 34 years. Seas are rising everywhere and some lands are also subsiding because of our actions; but some are actually rising out of the sea
The East Mediterranean rose 15 cm in 34 years. Seas are rising everywhere and some lands are also subsiding because of our actions; but some are actually rising out of the sea
10:02 PM • May 02 2026 IDT
The water level in the eastern Mediterranean Sea has risen by 15 centimeters, or almost six inches, since 1992, science revealed this week. Given that the sea level had been stable for roughly the last 8,000 years that is a big change in just 34 years.
That startling figure doesn't even include the increase caused by the preceding 100 plus years of industrial activity. If we include the previous century and a half, the mean global sea level has risen by 21 to 24 centimeters, which is ALMOST A FOOT, PEOPLE. The figures apply to Israel too.
Moreover, as global warming accelerates, so is the pace of sea-level rise. Do note that climate change has already destabilized the climate as we knew it and it's barely begun yet.
For the last 8,000 years we have been building our villages, towns and cities on the coasts that we knew, which were unchanging, barring local cataclysms. It is hard to imagine these coasts disappearing, and hard to accept the idea that not only boardwalks but whole cities we knew as children, our children will not know.
Why is the sea level rising? Because there is more water slopping around. That is happening because our industrial activity is increasing the proportion of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere, turning Earth into a greenhouse because more heat is retained. As the atmosphere warms, polar and glacial is melting, increasing the volume of the oceans. Also, warming water expands in volume. So what we have is more water because of melting ice that is expanding as it warms.
All this applies to the global mean sea level. But not every coastal city is suffering equally, from the perspective of us animals on land.
The ones hurting the worst are low-lying coastal cities like Jakarta and Lagos that are experiencing a double whammy of sea-level rise and at least some land subsidence. Subsidence is when the ground itself irreversibly contracts, in some cases dramatically. This is mainly because of groundwater over-exploitation and that is happening because the cities have more people than the natural water cycle can supply. The cities drill into the aquifers, extracting more "fossil water" than can be naturally replenished. One result is that as the aquifers empty, the ground compacts and collapses.
What's easier to crush, a full plastic bottle or an empty one? The logic is similar. This is also why cities around the world, irrespective of their proximity to the coast, are developing sinkholes. "Rock compacts because the water is partly responsible for holding the ground up. When the water is withdrawn, the rocks falls in on itself," according to the United States Geological Survey.
The problem of land compaction is exacerbated by the erection of skyscrapers and malls, in other words very heavy buildings that compress the soil, clay and sediment beneath them. Even the rock.
"Rock compacts because the water is partly responsible for holding the ground up. When the water is withdrawn, the rocks falls in on itself," the United States Geological Survey explains. This problem is exacerbated by our building skyscrapers and malls, in other words very heavy buildings that compress soil, clay and sediment beneath them. Even rock.
In short, we have a whole coop of evil chickens coming home to roost. In Indonesia, the government gave up on saving Jakarta from sea-level rise and subsidence and is moving its seat to a new city, though while the officials dry their boots on higher ground it's not clear what the other ~32 million people of greater Jakarta are supposed to do.
Without so much as admitting it, the world at large transitioned from denying climate change to ignoring it, or trying to. But the bottom line is that sometimes they can't. Many seem to barely notice the creep in the mercury but when their feet get wet, they can't pretend it isn't happening. New Orleans in the U.S., Lagos in Nigeria, Bangkok in Thailand, Chennai in India – the list of cities experiencing the impacts of the rising sea and subsidence goes on and on. Parts of Shanghai are sinking by a centimeter a year.
Nor are sinking megacities a developing world problem - a 2023 study found New York City's skyscrapers exert about 1.7 trillion pounds of pressure on the island, which is subsiding by 1 to 2 millimeters a year (in mean terms; some places, where heavy buildings sit on soft soil, the subsidence is worse). "New York City faces accelerating inundation risk from sea-level rise, subsidence, and increasing storm intensity from natural and anthropogenic causes," that paper says.
But there are places not exposed to sea-level rise because the land is not subsiding or sitting still, it's experiencing post-glacial rebound. That too can be dramatic.
The biggest rebound, according to geologists, is around Hudson Bay in Canada. The land is rising as the ice mass formerly known as the Laurentide ice sheet, which was as thick as three kilometers in some areas, melts away. This is called isostatic rebound. By how much is the Hudson Bay isostatically rebounding? A lot – about 8 to 13 millimeters a year, so since the last ice age, the Hudson Bay area has risen about 130 meters. Geologists predict it has about another 100 meters to go over the next 5,000 years before it's done.
There, you will be safe from sea-level rise though note that if you buy a house with a view of the bay, the bay is shrinking. Your descendants will have a view of the road to the bay.
Parts of Scandinavia are also rising as the glaciers shrink, also by several millimeters a year. There too the ice had been about three kilometers thick at the Glacial Maximum. Sweden's Kvarken Archipelago now consists of some 5,600 islands and more keep appearing as land uplift continues. Since the ice retreated, this land has risen at least 286 meters, according to NASA.
So what have we? Let us be clear that water seeks its own level. Take two containers with different levels of water and connect them. Water will flow from the fuller container to the emptier one until both have the same level. The world's oceans are interconnected and the sea level is rising. But rebounding lands that had once been covered by thick sheets of ice do not face the dangers faced by, for example, the people of Tuvalu island in the Pacific, who are moving en masse – to Australia – as the water gradually inundates their land.
Climate change and sea-level rise are not theoretical or political, they are as real as a rat in your sandwich. Global warming is not only happening, it's ramping up. New calculations predict that the global mean temperature will have increased by the catastrophic level of 1.5 degrees Celsius not by 2100 but by 2030 – in four years' time. In your lifetime.
Before you shrug that 1.5 C is unimpressive, the problem isn't just the trend line but the destabilization of the climate as we knew it, leading to extreme spikes during hot and cold snaps – from heat waves to blizzards. Worldwide, people are already experiencing the change to the global water cycle, in ways science still cannot reliably predict, partly because the planet has entered uncharted climatic territory.
Meanwhile most of us are short of being in acute danger of drowning in the parking lot. Then there are the special cases. Take Miami. It has a special problem beyond sea-level rise and some subsidence, most notably of high-rises on its barrier islands. Miami residents have been experiencing "sunny-day flooding" during king tides and each year, the floods rise higher, go further and stay longer.
This is partly due to sea-level rise, and partly to Miami's geology. Its bedrock is porous. Rising seas cause the groundwater to rise too. That's what sunny day flooding in Miami is: when the tide rises high, so does the groundwater and it merrily bursts through the drainage system meant to keep the city dry. Thirty years ago sunny-day flooding wasn't a thing. By mid-century the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration expects it to happen as much as once a week, assuming that the global sea level has risen by about another foot. Yet if climate change is ramping up as recent measurements suggest, those estimates could prove too mean.
In an interview with 103FM’s Nissim Mishal and Anat Davidov, the school’s principal, Amir Les, added that the suspect had been released the same day, but “ won't be returning to the school at all."
The NIS 350 billion deal resolves the debate over which plane to invest in, resulting in a much larger budget to cover both.
Strikes on refineries and gas facilities signal a new phase in the Israel–Iran war with systemic risks beyond the battlefield.
Officials first considered a sharply reduced symbolic event before approving a broader format that would have allowed gatherings of up to 1,500 people in each compound.