GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -First, water is increasingly invading coastal areas, causing soil erosion and threatening farmland, housing or recreation areas. The flooding of wetlands and pollution of aquifers also occur, affecting the flora and fauna of each place, causing the loss of habitat for fish, birds, plants and many other species.

Detailed explanation-2: -When sea levels rise as rapidly as they have been, even a small increase can have devastating effects on coastal habitats farther inland, it can cause destructive erosion, wetland flooding, aquifer and agricultural soil contamination with salt, and lost habitat for fish, birds, and plants.

Detailed explanation-3: -Global sea levels are rising as a result of human-caused global warming, with recent rates being unprecedented over the past 2, 500-plus years. Sea level rise is caused primarily by two factors related to global warming: the added water from melting ice sheets and glaciers, and the expansion of seawater as it warms.

Detailed explanation-4: -First, glaciers and ice sheets worldwide are melting and adding water to the ocean. Second, the volume of the ocean is expanding as the water warms. A third, much smaller contributor to sea level rise is a decline in the amount of liquid water on land-aquifers, lakes and reservoirs, rivers, soil moisture.

Detailed explanation-5: -Hot spots include the U.S. East Coast and Gulf Coast, Asia, and islands. The risk comes not only from rising sea levels due to ice-melt, and the expansion of ocean water as it warms, but to increasing storm surges and high-tide flooding.