Rising Seas Are Coming To A Coastal Area Near You
A few Sunday’s ago, I watched a fascinating documentary on the BBC.
In the show, the presenter travelled to the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. What he showed was astonishing.
At first, the scenes appeared mundane. A man travelling around in a boat. There wasn't much to see.
Then, the boat homed in on the branches of a tree poking through the water. Except, this wasn't a log floating through the ocean, this was the remnants of an island.
One claimed by the ocean as sea levels start to rise.
This isn't just isolated to the Solomon Islands, it's happening around the world.
Seas are now rising at an average of 3.2mm per year globally. That might not sound like much, but it adds up over time.
By 2100, those millimetres are estimated to add up to a total of 0.2 to 2 metres of sea-level rise.
Increasing temperatures are the trigger. As temperatures rise, ice sheets such as the one in Greenland start to melt. All the ice has to go somewhere, and it ends up in the ocean.
In a nightmare scenario, if the entire Greenland ice sheet melts, the sea level would rise by six metres.
For low-lying countries such as Bangladesh and the Netherlands, this would spell disaster. Millions of people across the globe could be displaced if sea levels rise by a few metres.
Some 340 to 480 million people could be forced to migrate to safer areas to flee the rising waters.
Climate change impacts the globe in a variety of different ways.
Rising sea levels are one of the most obvious and dangerous aspects of global warming.
Without mitigation and a rethink on how we consume energy, they will continue to rise higher and higher.