Scientists look at past climates to learn about climate change and the ability to simulate it with computer models. One region in particular that has received a great deal of attention is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, the vast pool of warm water stretching along the equator from Africa to the western Pacific Ocean.
While sea level rises caused by global warming threaten islands, a tiny marine creature appears to be riding to the rescue, spreading rapidly through the oceans and stabilizing coastlines.
Whatever we do, greenhouse gas emissions have alreadytriggered an irreversible warming of Earth that will cause sea levels to rise for more than a thousand years to come, claims a European team.
While Greenland's glaciers are moving ever-faster twowards the sea, they're not accelerating as much as believed, indicating that future sea level rises could be a lot less than current worst-case scenarios.
Scientists studying coral off the coast of Tahiti have linked a collapse of the world's ice sheets 14,600 years ago to a sudden 14-meter rise in global sea-levels.
New research from NASA into the Earth's paleoclimate history indicates we could be facing rapid climate change this century, including sea level rises of many meters.
A NASA-funded team of scientists is to drill into a rapidly-thinning Antarctic glacier to try and establish the effect its melting will have on sea levels.
Melting mountain glaciers are pushing up sea level rises faster than at any time in the last 350 years, say scientists - indeed, many are melting up to 100 times faster.
Tackling sea level rises though geoengineering won't work, and would impose enormous risks on future generations, according to an international research team.
