Terrawatch: the rise and bigger rise of Mediterranean sea levels

There has been more sea level rise on Italy's Amalfi coast than on Spain's Costa del Sol over the last two decades.

Since 1960, researchers have combined data from tide gauge and satellites to model sea level change. Increased atmospheric pressure over the basin caused the sea level to fall between 1960 and 1989.

The Mediterranean basin has seen an average sea level rise of 3.6mm a year since 1989. The rise has been spread differently.

The Cretan passage in the eastern Mediterranean has risen by half the amount of the Adriatic, Aegean and Levantine seas over the last 20 years.

Changes in water density and circulation patterns in the Mediterranean may be to blame for the unevenly distributed pattern. Implications for coastal engineering have arisen from this.

Sea walls are effective but costly. Francisco Mir Calafat says that reliable estimates of local sea level rise will help planners.