Researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) have claimed through a latest study that sea levels have risen more in the past century than any other comparable period in the past 6,000 years.

Researchers said that during the study, they recorded almost 20-centimeter rise in the sea levels since the beginning of the 20th century. They stated that global warming and the melting of polar ice are the main factors attributable for the sea level rise.

The ANU study, a lengthy analysis of historical sea level trends, showed that the sea levels remained almost the same for thousands of years before rapid rise occurred over the past 150 years, since global industrialization.

For the study, the researchers looked at the fluctuations of ocean levels over the past 35,000 years, based on ice volume changes around the world. The paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has been described by the researchers as the most comprehensive one of its kind looking at the period.

The researchers in their endeavor collected about 1,000 ancient sediment samples off Britain, North America, Greenland and the Seychelles over a period of two decades. This formed the basis of the research.

Professor Kurt Lambeck, from the ANU, said sea levels said the rise in sea level has not been recorded more than 20 centimeters over several millennia.

"For the last 150 years we've been seeing this increase, this rising sea level, at a rate of a few millimeters per year and in our older records we do not see similar behavior", said Lambeck.

He said that it is impossible to contain sea level rise in years to come even if carbon emissions are limited to the extent what they are today. But there is no certainly about the rise in the level in future and the process can't be reversed overnight as well.