§ Mr. Nigel JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the effect of global warming on sea levels. [68695]
§ Mr. MealeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its 1995 assessment, reported that global mean sea level has risen 10–25cm over the last 100 years, and that it is likely that this rise has been largely due to the concurrent increase in global temperature over the same time period.
The Panel's projections for the future, for a wide range of emission scenarios, are that global mean sea level will rise by 15–95cm by the year 2100. Research funded by my Department at the Hadley Centre suggests that, for a "business as usual scenario", global mean sea level will rise by about 50cm by the year 2100.
Estimates of sea level rise for regions of the UK were prepared for the UK Climate Impacts Programme and published in 1998, for various climate change scenarios which take account of expected land movements. Similar allowances to the changes now estimated have been used since 1989 for the construction or improvement of sea defences.