Photo credit: 8zil

During a climate change summit in Copenhagen last week, with more than 2,000 researchers from 80 countries attending, scientists warned that global sea levels could rise with more than a metre, or more, by 2100. The rising sea levels, they warn, will displace 10% of the world’s population, around 600 million people who live in low-lying countries.

Just last week I told you that scientists are warning that the pace of climate change “have largely outpaced” the models and estimates from the IPCC 2007 report. And now this report shows that the rise in global sea levels is up to three times worse than previously predicted by the conservative estimates from IPCC .

“I would predict sea level rise by 2100 in the order of 1m,” Prof Konrad Steffen, of the University of Colorado, said. “It could be 1.2m or 0.9m, but it is 1m or more seeing the current change, which is up to three times more than the average predicted by the IPCC. It is a major change and it actually calls for action.”

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Photo credit: azrainman

Top German scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber warns that climate change is now happening much more quickly than anyone thought was possible.

In an interview with Saarbruecker Zeitung newspaper Schellnhuber, who heads the Potsdam Institute for Research on Global Warming Effects and acts as an adviser to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate-change issues, said that “the threats posed by climate change are worse than those imagined by most governments.”

“In nearly all areas, the developments are occurring more quickly than it has been assumed up until now. We are on our way to a destabilization of the world climate that has advanced much further than most people or their governments realize.”

Schellnhuber points out that the Arctic ice is melting faster than previously expected and says that “the entire climate pattern at the North Poll has been disrupted to the extent of causing irreversible change.”

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Professor Will Steffen, head of the climate change unit at the Australian National University and science adviser to the Federal Government in Australia, says that sea levels around the world could rise by 4 meters this century. He also claims that the scientific community underestimates how fast our climate is changing.

“The evidence over the past 12 to 18 months suggests that we have underestimated how fast this aspect of the earth’s system can change,” he said.

“We see things happening much faster than we thought.”

Professor Steffen raised this concern at the Coast to Coast Collaboration Conference in Darwin where he said “a four-metre rise could have devastating effects.”

How will our coastal cities look like when the ice melts and causes rising sea levels? How can we take care and give room for the millions of climate change refugees in the future? Well, the Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut might have the answer.

Vincent Callebaut has designed a “floating ecopolis” called Lilypad. Each of these floating cities has room for 50000 people. The city will be able to generate its own energy with the help from several wind turbines, wave power and solar panels. Lilypad will also be able to collect and clean rainwater for daily use around the city.

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Here is a clever ad on a bridge in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, one of the countries in Europe that will face the worst consequences of global warming.

The advert says: “If the water reached this level we would not need the bridge. Drive on, maybe we will achieve this!”

Via Woostercollective.com

Is Florida already feeling the early effects of global warming? Can we safely say that Florida is sinking into the ocean? The rumors I heard as a child, that such a thing could happen, seemed like folklore. If you listen to the many experts on the subject though, that seems to be the case. Beans that I’m a citizen of the Sunshine state, as one would imagine, this issue is of great concern to me.

In this article, we will look at the severe impacts that have yet to hit us. There were conclusions layed out in an October 2001 scientific study published
by NRDC in conjunction with research scientists at Florida universitie. The study found that the far-reaching effects of global warming will transform Florida’s climate, coastline and treasured natural areas. Such impacts will hit in ways that are expected to profoundly affect the state’s economy, agriculture, and ultimately, the health of its people.

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