• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
EXCLUSIVE: Hydrogen is Up, Pieridae is Out as German Chancellor Preps for Canada Visit August 15, 2022
Historic Climate Bill Passes U.S. House, Goes to Biden for Signature August 15, 2022
BREAKING: U.S. Senate Passes Historic $369B Climate Package August 7, 2022
Researchers Point To ‘Dangerously Unexplored’ Risk of Global Climate Catastrophe August 2, 2022
Koch Network Pressures Manchin, Sinema as Advocates Praise ‘Game Changing’ Climate Deal August 2, 2022
Next
Prev
Opinion & Analysis

Analysis: Sea Levels Will Rise, But COP 26 Decisions Will Determine How Much

October 13, 2021
Reading time: 5 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

David Baird/Geograph

David Baird/Geograph

1
SHARES
 

This story includes details about the impacts of climate change that may be difficult for some readers. If you are feeling overwhelmed by this crisis situation here is a list of resources on how to cope with fears and feelings about the scope and pace of the climate crisis.

Sea level rise is now inexorable. So is coastal flooding. And as the world’s leaders prepare for a make-or-break meeting in Glasgow, Scotland next month to confront the climate crisis, a new set of visualizations from Climate Central can help deliver the imagery of hazard in ominous detail.

Even if the world keeps its promise to contain global warming to 1.5°C, over time sea levels will rise by 2.9 metres and vast tracts of what is now valuable urban real estate in many of the world’s great coastal cities will be below the high tide line. This becomes inevitable when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise from the historic norm of 288 parts per million to more than 400 ppm in little more than a century.

Which means that one day—perhaps in the next 30 years—Londoners could see the waters of the River Thames lap in annual flood around the new U.S. Embassy and soak the stadium of Chelsea Football Club.

If global temperatures go on rising to 3°C by 2100—and right now, that’s where temperatures are headed—New Yorkers will one day watch the waters rise over downtown Manhattan and flood John F. Kennedy Airport, while Londoners could see the muddy waters slosh against the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral at the top of Ludgate Hill.

Sea level rises on even the most hopeful projections will be grim news for the 510 million people who right now live in those coastal districts most at risk. But if the world goes on burning fossil fuels and raising levels of atmospheric carbon at present rates, the planet will warm by 3°C to bring the menace of rising damp to 800 million urban dwellers, about one-tenth of the world’s present population.

And graphic tools, based on the latest satellite measurements and population data, and developed by climate scientists can now deliver the warning at the level of streets and buildings.

Six years ago, 195 nations agreed at the Paris climate conference to hold global warming to 1.5°C by the year 2100. Even then, there was already enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to go on melting the ice caps and raising global sea levels by a projected 1.9 metres. By the time the world reaches the goal of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions, the final cost in sea level rise will be 2.9 metres. 

And if it doesn’t achieve that goal—if global temperatures rise to what at the moment promises to be 3°C or even 4°  then the world’s coastal cities face threats that have no precedent, according to a companion study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Within decades, the world’s cities could be facing huge costs for coastal flooding. But the timetable for city floods on a for-the-moment almost unimaginable scale is protracted. In a scenario in which nations go on exploiting coal, oil, and gas as energy sources, and go on clearing the planet’s great forests, temperatures could rise to 4°C. If that happens, then there will be enough carbon in the atmosphere to raise global sea levels by 8.9 metres.

It won’t happen in a hurry. But, over an interval that could take hundreds or even thousands of years, the seas will rise, because the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will go on raising the planetary temperature and melting the ice caps. Ice reflects solar radiation back into space: once the ice goes, then the rocks and water absorb more sunlight and warming inevitably accelerates. Once the permafrost thaws, vast reserves of once-frozen vegetation start to decompose, to release even more carbon in the form of methane and carbon dioxide, and go on raising global temperatures.

Studies of this kind are aimed at helping governments, civic authorities, and communities focus on the challenge ahead. At the COP 26 meeting in Glasgow in November, the world’s leaders will be asked to deliver plans to drastically reduce greenhouse emissions and contain global heating. The message is that a rise of 1.5°C will be expensive, but a rise of 3°C or 4°C could be catastrophic. 

It could be a slow catastrophe. Sea levels could rise over a timespan of 2,000 years. Or they could swell by seven metres in the next 180 years.  The message of the latest Environmental Research Letters study from researchers at Climate Central at Princeton, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University is that—however swiftly or slowly—sea level rise is on the way. Protection from flooding will involve increasing expense for the wealthiest nations, and devastating loss for the poorest.

Whole nations—the Maldives, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Bahamas, Tuvalu, the Cocos Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Tokelau—could watch land that is home to 90% of their population slip below the high tide line. The next question is: could levees, walls, and other engineered solutions save London, or Rotterdam in The Netherlands, or Tokyo in Japan, or Jakarta in Indonesia, where parts of both cities have already subsided by almost five metres, and where some residents already live below sea level?

”Even monumental adaptation measures will not be able eliminate all concerns. Some rivers will need to be walled off from the sea and fully pumped into it, with consequences for ecology, ports, trade, and more. Citizens living inside deep bowls of protected areas would need to agree to live with the risk of catastrophic and near-instant floods in the events of levee or pump failures, whether from natural causes, human error, or terrorist or wartime attacks,” the scientists write.

Those results “suggest that a sharp reduction in carbon emissions is in the national interest of all coastal nations.”



in Buildings, Cities & Communities, COP Conferences, Health & Safety, Ice Loss & Sea Level Rise, International Agencies & Studies, Opinion & Analysis, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Suncor Energy Plant_Max and Dee Bernt:Flickr
Ending Emissions

Fossils Would ‘Bust the Paris Agreement’ with Inadequate Decarbonization Plans

August 18, 2022
2
Steve Jurvetson/flickr
International Security & War

The Other Kind of Climate Change: Even a ‘Limited’ Nuclear War Would Trigger Starvation, Kill Billions

August 18, 2022
75
kris krüg/flickr
Tar Sands / Oil Sands

Guilbeault Considering Alternatives to Releasing Toxic Tailings into Athabasca River

August 18, 2022
2

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Brocken Inaglory/wikimedia commons

State-Wide Megastorm Driven by Global Heating Could Drench California for a Month

August 15, 2022
1.1k
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coal_Carbon_Capture_Technology_In_Use.png

Carbon Capture a ‘Dangerous Distraction’, 500 Organizations Warn Canada, U.S.

July 23, 2021
617
TGEGASENGINEERING/Wikimedia Commons

EXCLUSIVE: Hydrogen is Up, Pieridae is Out as German Chancellor Preps for Canada Visit

August 15, 2022
1.1k
Vinaykumar8687/WikimediaCommons

Solar On Track for ‘Staggering’ 30% Growth This Year

August 15, 2022
315
Early stages of construction on the Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor in France

Failing French Nuclear Plants Drive Up Electricity Costs as Heat Waves Cut Production

August 14, 2022
753
rawpixel

Common Medications Foil Body’s Ability to Cope with Hot Weather

August 15, 2022
205

Recent Posts

Suncor Energy Plant_Max and Dee Bernt:Flickr

Fossils Would ‘Bust the Paris Agreement’ with Inadequate Decarbonization Plans

August 18, 2022
2
Ken Hodge/Flickr

No Path for Canadian LNG Exports to Europe, IISD Analysis Concludes

August 18, 2022
3
Steve Jurvetson/flickr

The Other Kind of Climate Change: Even a ‘Limited’ Nuclear War Would Trigger Starvation, Kill Billions

August 18, 2022
75
kris krüg/flickr

Guilbeault Considering Alternatives to Releasing Toxic Tailings into Athabasca River

August 18, 2022
2
Ford F-150 LIghtning

U.S. Utility Plans to Draw Power from Ford Electric Pickups

August 18, 2022
2
power pylons sunrise grid

Midwestern U.S. Grid Investment Supports Massive Increase in Renewables

August 18, 2022
3
Next Post
Greta Thunberg/Facebook

Thunberg Is ‘Open’ to Meeting Biden at UN Climate Summit

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}