Rise in ocean levels is not a new phenomenon as several studies have already highlighted that the ocean levels around the globe are rising. But a new study revealed that the speed of rise has broken thousands of years old record.

Rise in sea levels was 14 centimeters, or 5.5 inches, from 1900 to 2000, which means 1.4 millimeters every year, the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated. As per NASA figures, the present rate of rise is around 3.4 millimeters a year, which shows that sea levels are accelerating at a fast rate.

Like many other previous studies on the issue, the new research has also blamed global warming. It also said that if humans had taken climate change seriously in the past, the rate of rise could be just 7 centimeter rise, or 3 centimeter fall, and not a 14 centimeter rise.

“We can say with 95 percent probability that the 20th-century rise was faster than any of the previous 27 centuries. It’s not that seas rose faster before that, but merely that the ability to say as much with the same level confidence declines”, said Bob Kopp, lead researcher of the study and climate scientist at Rutgers University.

It is not the first time when researchers conducted a study on such patterns. In 1998, a research team led by Penn State University researcher Michael Mann developed a graph for earth’s temperature having a ‘hockey stick’ pattern. The graph faced criticism from a number of scientists and experts, but a large number of researchers favored the research and affirmed that last one century was way out of whack with what our earth has seen in past many centuries.