Two of the world's leading climate scientists today pointed to a worrying trend in sea level rise, and warned that the Maine coast could be particularly hard hit. Dr. Gordon Hamilton from the University of Maine and Dr. Mark Fahnestock from the University of New Hampshire warned that polar ice is melting at a much faster rate than previously thought.
They projected a rise of at least three feet in sea level by the year 2100, if current trends continue. Hamilton said the Northeast coast of the United States will be particularly hard hit, due to the impact of glacial water on top of the warmer waters of the gulfstream.
"Not only do we get the contribution from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the melting of continental ice, but we get this additional ocean dynamic effect of warm water pooling up on our coasts," he said.
Hamilton and Fahnstock were speaking at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland as part of a tour of East Coast cities organized by the New Hampshire non-profit "Clean Air Cool Planet."