2026年3月5日 / 美国东部时间上午8:37 / CBS/美联社
一项新研究表明，气候变化导致的海平面上升可能比之前认为的要高得多。该研究称，”方法论盲点”导致研究人员低估了现有的沿海水位。这一发现表明，海平面上升威胁的人口比科学家和政府官员此前认为的多数千万人，对本已脆弱的社区构成了更高风险。
这项发表在《自然》(Nature)杂志上的新研究回顾了数百项科学研究和灾害评估，计算发现其中约90%的研究对基准沿海水位的低估平均达1英尺。研究发现，这种情况在全球南方地区、太平洋和东南亚更为普遍，而在欧洲和大西洋沿岸则较少出现。
研究合著者、荷兰瓦赫宁根大学及研究中心水文地质学教授菲利普·明德胡德(Philip Minderhoud)表示，这是因为海平面和陆地海拔的测量方法存在不匹配。他将此归因于两种测量方式之间的”方法论盲点”。
在这项新研究中，他和合著者写道，他们的目标是消除继续使用错误方法以及所谓的”对海平面上升和灾害影响评估的广泛低估”。
他表示，计算海平面和陆地海拔的每种方法本身都能正确测量这些区域，但在海洋与陆地的交界处，存在许多因素在使用卫星和陆基模型时往往未被考虑。
意大利帕多瓦大学的主要作者卡特琳娜·塞格尔(Katharina Seeger)表示，计算海平面上升影响的研究通常”不考虑实际测量的海平面，而是以零米为起点”。明德胡德说，在印度洋-太平洋的一些地区，这个零米起点接近3英尺。
作者们解释说，理解这一点的一个简单方法是：许多研究假设海平面没有波浪或水流，但实际上在水边，海洋会不断受到风、潮汐、水流、温度变化和厄尔尼诺现象等因素的影响。
研究称，调整到更准确的沿海高度基准意味着，如果海平面如一些研究预测的那样在本世纪末上升略超过3英尺，海水可能淹没37%更多的土地，威胁7700万至1.32亿更多人口。
这将在规划和应对全球变暖影响的资金投入方面引发问题。
受影响人群
德国波茨坦气候影响研究所的气候科学家安德斯·莱弗曼(Anders Levermann)（未参与本研究）表示：”这里有很多人面临极端洪水的风险比人们想象的要高得多。”他还指出，研究发现差异最大的东南亚地区本身就是受海平面上升威胁人口最多的地区。
明德胡德指出，该地区的岛国是这一差异现实的直接体现。
2025年7月19日拍摄的瓦努阿图埃法特岛海岸线。安妮卡·哈默施拉格 / 美联社
对于17岁的气候活动家韦帕亚梅莱·特里夫(Vepaiamele Trief)来说，这些预测并非抽象概念。在她位于南太平洋瓦努阿图群岛的家乡，海岸线在她短暂的一生中明显后退，海滩被侵蚀，沿海树木被连根拔起，一些房屋在涨潮时距离海水仅3英尺。在她祖母所在的安巴岛，从机场到村庄的沿海道路因海水侵蚀而被改道至内陆。坟墓被淹没，整个生活方式都受到威胁。
“这些研究不仅仅是纸上谈兵，不仅仅是数字，而是人们的实际生计，”她说，”设身处地想想我们的沿海社区——他们的生活将因海平面上升和气候变化而彻底颠覆。”
这项新研究基本上是在揭示地面上的真实情况。
塞格尔和明德胡德表示，对整体海洋或陆地的计算在水与陆地的关键交汇点并不完全正确，这在太平洋地区尤为明显。
“要了解一块土地比水面高出多少，你需要知道陆地海拔和水面海拔。而这篇论文指出，绝大多数研究只是假设你的土地海拔数据中的零就是水面高度，而实际上并非如此，”海平面上升专家、Climate Central首席执行官本·施特劳斯(Ben Strauss)说。他2019年的研究是新论文中为数不多被认为正确的研究之一。
“只是你开始计算的基准线被弄错了，”未参与本研究的施特劳斯表示。
部分科学家认为问题或没那么严重
其他外部科学家表示，明德胡德和塞格尔可能夸大了问题的影响。
法国地质调查局科学家戈内里·勒科扎内特(Gonéri Le Cozannet)表示：”我认为他们对影响研究的意义有些夸大——这个问题其实是可以理解的，尽管解决方式可能需要改进。”罗格斯大学海平面专家罗伯特·科佩(Robert Kopp)表示，大多数地方规划者都清楚自己的沿海问题并据此制定计划。
明德胡德说，在高影响地区越南也是如此，他们对海拔高度有准确的认知。
与此同时，联合国教科文组织的一份新报告警告称，在理解海洋吸收多少碳的问题上存在重大差距。该报告称，在估算这一碳汇规模时，模型差异达10%至20%，这引发了对依赖这些模型的全球气候预测准确性的质疑。
综合来看，这些研究表明各国政府在规划沿海和气候风险时，对海洋变化的了解并不全面。
“当海洋逼近时，它夺走的不仅仅是我们曾经享受的土地，”拯救儿童组织瓦努阿图气候倡导者汤普森·纳图伊维(Thompson Natuoivi)表示。
“海平面上升不仅改变了我们的海岸线，更改变了我们的生活。我们谈论的不是未来——而是现在。”
Sea levels much higher than previously thought due to “methodological blind spot,” study finds
March 5, 2026 / 8:37 AM EST / CBS/AP
Rising sea levels caused by climate change may be significantly higher than previously thought, according to a new study, which says a “methodological blind spot” led researchers to underestimate existing coastal water levels. The revelation suggests that higher seas threaten tens of millions more people than scientists and government officials believed, with elevated risks for already vulnerable communities.
The new research, published in the journal Nature, reviewed hundreds of scientific studies and hazard assessments, calculating that about 90% of them underestimated baseline coastal water heights by an average of 1 foot. The study found it’s a far more frequent problem in the Global South, the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and less so in Europe and along Atlantic coasts.
It’s because of a mismatch between the way sea and land altitudes are measured, said study co-author Philip Minderhoud, a hydrogeology professor at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. He attributed that to a “methodological blind spot” between the different ways those two things are measured.
In the new study, he and his co-authors wrote that their aim was to eliminate the continued use of incorrect methodologies and what they called “widespread underestimations of coastal sea level rise and hazard impact assessments.”
Each way of calculating sea and land altitudes measures those areas properly, he said. But where sea meets land, there are a lot of factors that often don’t get accounted for when satellites and land-based models are used.
Studies that calculate sea level rise impact usually “do not look at the actual measured sea level so they used this zero-meter” figure as a starting point, said lead author Katharina Seeger of the University of Padua in Italy. In some places in the Indo-Pacific, it’s close to 3 feet, Minderhoud said.
One simple way to understand that is that many studies assume sea levels without waves or currents, when the reality at the water’s edge is of oceans constantly roiled by wind, tides, currents, changing temperatures and things like El Niño, said the authors.
Adjusting to a more accurate coastal height baseline means that if seas rise by a little more than 3 feet — as some studies suggest will happen by the end of the century — waters could inundate up to 37% more land and threaten 77 million to 132 million more people, the study said.
That would trigger problems in planning and paying for the impacts of a warming world.
People at risk
“You have a lot of people here for whom the risk of extreme flooding is much higher than people thought,” said Anders Levermann, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany, who wasn’t part of the study. And Southeast Asia, where the study finds the biggest discrepancy, has the most people already threatened by sea level rise, he said.
Minderhoud pointed to island nations in that region as an area where the reality of discrepancy hits home.
The coastline of Efate Island, Vanuatu, seen on July 19, 2025. Annika Hammerschlag / AP
For 17-year-old climate activist Vepaiamele Trief, the projections aren’t abstract. On her island home in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, the shoreline has visibly retreated within her short lifetime, with beaches eroded, coastal trees uprooted and some homes now barely 3 feet from the sea at high tide. On her grandmother’s island of Ambae, a coastal road from the airport to her village has been rerouted inland because of encroaching water. Graves have been submerged and entire ways of life feel under threat.
“These studies, they aren’t just words on a paper. They aren’t just numbers. They’re people’s actual livelihoods,” she said. “Put yourself in the shoes of our coastal communities — their lives are going to be completely overturned because of sea level rise and climate change.”
This new study is pretty much about what is the truth on the ground.
Calculations that may be correct for the seas overall or for the land aren’t quite right at that key intersection point of water and land, Seeger and Minderhoud said. It’s especially true in the Pacific.
“To understand how much higher a piece of land is than the water, you need to know the land elevation and the water elevation. And what this paper says the vast majority of studies have done is to just assume that zero in your land elevation dataset is the level of the water. When in fact, it’s not,” said sea level rise expert Ben Strauss, CEO of Climate Central. His 2019 study was one of the few the new paper said got it right.
“It’s just the baseline that you start from that people are getting wrong,” said Strauss, who wasn’t part of the research.
Maybe not so bad, some scientists say
Other outside scientists said that Minderhoud and Seeger may be making too much of the problem.
“I think they’re exaggerating the implications for impact studies a bit — the problem is actually well understood, albeit addressed in a way that could probably be improved,” said Gonéri Le Cozannet, a scientist at the French geological survey. Most local planners know their coastal issues and plan accordingly, Rutgers University sea level expert Robert Kopp said.
That’s true in Vietnam in the high-impact area, Minderhoud said. They have an accurate sense of elevation, he said.
The findings come as a new UNESCO report warns of major gaps in understanding how much carbon the ocean absorbs. That report said that models differ by 10% to 20% in estimating the size of that carbon sink, raising questions about the accuracy of global climate projections that rely on them.
Together, the studies suggest governments may be planning for coastal and climate risks with an incomplete picture of how the ocean is changing.
“When the ocean comes closer, it takes away more than just the land we used to enjoy,” said Thompson Natuoivi, a climate advocate for Save the Children Vanuatu.
“Sea level rise is not just changing our coastline, it’s changing our lives. We are not talking about the future — we’re talking about the right now.”
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