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Environment

How sea level rise could change the world

  • Nov 11, 2015
  • 461 words
  • 2 minutes
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As the world waits to see what will be resolved at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris next month, numerous research groups are sounding the alarm that action must be taken now to prevent disastrous global consequences.

Among them are the scientists and journalists at Climate Central, an independent association dedicated to reporting on climate change.

In a post published earlier this week, Benjamin Strauss, a leading expert on climate-related sea level rise, warned that “business as usual” could make familiar global landmarks nearly unrecognizable within 80 years.

Using sea level rise projections published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., Strauss and artist Nickolay Lamm created a series of interactive images showing what coastal cities could look like by 2100 if either of two global warming scenarios comes to pass.

The first scenario, a 4 C rise in average global temperatures, would lead to widespread severe coastal inundation. The second scenario, 2 C of global warming, would still have a significant impact on sea levels but is considered the threshold for avoiding catastrophic climate change.

“The decisions reached [in Paris] may have a strong bearing on which of these two scenarios the future looks like most,” Strauss wrote.

Curious to see how sea level rise could affect your community? Climate Central’s projections can be viewed at Mapping Choices, an interactive tool that allows users to view climate change impact scenarios for any coastal city or postal code around the world.

How climate-related sea level rise could change coastal cities

Using sea level rise projections published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., Researcher Benjamin Strauss and artist Nickolay Lamm created a series of interactive images showing what coastal cities could look like by 2100 if either of two global warming scenarios comes to pass.

The first scenario, a 4 C rise in average global temperatures, would lead to widespread severe coastal inundation. The second scenario, 2 C of global warming, would still have a significant impact on sea levels but is considered the threshold for avoiding catastrophic climate change.













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