Like many countries around the world, Taiwan's sea levels have risen steadily as a result of global warming and measures need to be taken urgently to combat an increased threat of flooding, local environmental scientists said Sunday. Taiwan's sea level has risen by an average of 3 centimeters over the past 10 years, or about 0.3 cm each year, said Fan Kuang-lung, a professor in National Taiwan University's Institute of Oceanography. Fan, who led an NTU research team in studying tidal changes along the coasts of Keelung, Yilan, Taitung and Kaohsiung between 1991-2001, said global warming and human behavior, particularly on the west coast of the island, are leaving Taiwan increasingly vulnerable to climate change. 'Flooding will become the norm in some western tidal land areas,' Fan said. He explained that when typhoons strike, flash floods that inundate rivers will have difficulty flowing out to sea because the sea's level will be higher than the river's level. Floods could be exacerbated if sea waters inundate the areas as well, Fan said. Human behavior is only complicating the problem, the scientist suggested. Many households along Taiwan's western coast regularly pump underground water for farming or everyday use, gradually causing the ground to subside to a level lower than sea level. When sea water floods in, Fan warned, it will not be able to flow back out and consequently will accumulate in low-lying areas and cause severe floods and property damage. Liu Shao-chen, a distinguished researcher and director of Academia Sinica's Research Center for Environmental Changes, said global warming, caused by increased carbon dioxide emissions, is causing the polar ice caps to melt at a pace faster than formerly estimated. He cited the latest report by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), which forecast that if Greenland's entire ice cap melts down, the Earth's sea levels will rise by an average of 4-5 meters, and if the entire Antarctic Pole melts down, the world's sea levels will rise by an apocalyptic 70 meters. The SCAR report predicted that if global warming continues at its current level, South Pole ice will melt at an accelerated clip and sea levels will rise 1.4 meters by 2100. The estimate far exceeds the 18-43 cm rise predicted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Liu said. 'It is already too late to save Tuvalu, even if the world's nations step up reductions in energy consumption and carbon emissions now, ' Liu argued. 'Tuvalu will be completely submerged in 20 to 30 years.' His prediction is based on the argument that carbon dioxide, the main culprit in global warming, remains in the atmosphere for 80 years and that the CO2 layers that are impacting the Earth's temperatures today have been accumulated over the past eight decades. Liu said Taiwan does not face an immediate threat of being totally submerged, but he predicted flooding would become an increasingly normal phenomenon. Noting that precipitation in Taiwan will increase 1.4 times for every 1 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures, he urged Taiwan's government and people not to relent in its flood prevention efforts. 