New research shows that man-made global warming is causing the seas to rise at a faster rate than anytime in the past 2,800 years.  And separate research from NASA and from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) showed the North Pole is warmer than it should be.  It's a good week for global warming deniers to be quiet.

In one of two papers published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers collected and analyzed information going back 28 centuries, and found that sea levels are rising faster today than at any time over the past 3,000 years.  Prior to the the 1880s, sea levels rose three to four centimeters per century, at most.  During those centuries, global sea levels stayed within 7.6 centimeters above or below the 2,000-year average.  But after industrialization, world's seas rose 14 centimeters.

"The 20th century rise was extraordinary in the context of the last three millennia," said lead author Robert Kopp from Rutgers University, "And the rise over the last two decades has been even faster."  Dr. Kopp was adamant:  "It's because of the temperature increase in the 20th century which has been driven by fossil fuel use."

Co-author Stefan Rahmstorf from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany says sea levels are only going to get higher.  "I think we can definitely be confident that sea level rise is going to continue to accelerate if there's further warming," Professor Rahmstorf told the New York Times, "which inevitably there will be."

Meanwhile, US scientists from the space agency NASA and the NOAA reported that during teh month of January - the heart of the northern hemisphere winter - the North Pole was nearly 4 degrees C higher than the average temperatures in the same month each year from 1951 to 1980.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center says the amount of January sea ice is 644,000 square kilometers below average.