MANILA, Philippines– Sea level is rising at the coasts of the Philippines and Northern Australia and will continue to do so if humans will not stop altering the climate, according to a recently-released study by Old Dominion University and the University of Colorado Boulder.

The study revealed that sea level is rising at 1 centimeter per year and will increase the chance of having severe weather.

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Professor Benjamin Hamlington, a researcher in the study, said that “…we found that sea level rise off the coasts of the Philippines and northeastern Australia appear to be anthropogenic and would continue even without this oscillation.”

The study used NASA climate models to assess sea level rise in the tropical Pacific that included data on the warming tropical Indian Ocean. According to previous studies, the sea level rise in the Pacific region and Indian Ocean was caused by increases in greenhouse gases.

The goal of the study was to determine how much the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PD), a naturally occurring climate phenomenon, could influence sea rise patterns in the Pacific, said Assistant Professor Benjamin Hamlington of Old Dominion University.

According to the researchers, PDO is “a temperature pattern in the Pacific Ocean akin to El Niño but which lasts roughly 20 to 30 years and contributes significantly to the decadal trends in regional and global sea level.”

It was said that PDO is the only contributing factor to the rising sea levels in the Pacific Region yet the study revealed that it is also “anthropogenic” or human-induced.

The research was published in the Nature Climate Change journal.

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