Sea-level rise is currently measured in millimeters per year, but longer-term effects of global warming are going to force our descendants to measure sea-level rise in meters or yards.

Each Celsius degree of global warming is expected to raise sea levels during the centuries ahead by 2.3 meters, or 2.5 yards, according to a study published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The world is currently trying (and failing) to reach an agreement that would limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Business-as-usual practices could yet raise temperatures by 4 (or even more) degrees Celsius.

Multiply 2.5 yards by 4 and you are left with the specter of tides that lap 10 yards higher in the future than today. That’s 30 feet, the height of a three-story building. For comparison, the seas rose less than a foot last century.

Continue reading at Grist … http://grist.org/news/seas-may-rise-10-yards-during-centuries-ahead/