The mean sea level rise was 29.5 millimeters above the 1981–2010 average, the largest observed since tracking began in 1958. The continued prevalence of production of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases has resulted in record increases since 2014; scientists have also said that the rate of heat increase in rising even as the gases, and the heat that they trap, are not.

Studies have shown that more than 90 percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases ends up in the ocean. Among the effects of warmer ocean temperatures:

• Rising sea levels. Already, people in several communities have had to seek new homes because their existing ones are underwater or under threat of being so. Already, ice is melting at a rate that has alarmed scientists. Already, coral reefs are being killed off. Already, seaside communities are struggling with increasing saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies.
• Warmer weather results in stronger hurricanes and typhoons and heavier rainfall, as seen in 2018 with Hurricane Florence in the U.S. and major flooding in India, Japan, and the Philippines.

The study appeared in the latest Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.