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.”

Dr John Church, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Tasmania, said: “The most recent satellite and ground based observations show that sea-level rise is continuing to rise at 3mm per year or more since 1993, a rate well above the 20th-century average. The oceans are continuing to warm and expand, the melting of mountain glaciers has increased and the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are also contributing to sea level rise.”

Katherine Richardson, head of the Danish government’s commission on climate change policy, said that the IPCC report from 2007 was an “invaluable document”. But she also noted that the report would be “years out of date” when the next big UN climate negotiations start in Copenhagen this year.

Also read: Climate expert says sea levels could rise 4 meters this century

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.”

The Arctic sea ice is melting more quickly than expected. There are also signs that the entire climate pattern at the North Poll has been disrupted to the extent of causing irreversible change.

For the Arctic, the global warming which has already occurred of 0.8 degrees Celsius has already stepped over the line, Schellnhuber said. If Greenland’s ice cap melts completely, water levels will rise by seven meters (23 feet).

“The current coastline will no longer exist, and that includes Germany,” he said.

Schellnhuber says that to be able to stop global warming the industrial countries need to decrease their emissions by 80-90% and that by 2020 “this process has to be well underway”.

“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.

“Whereas the Netherlands and the United Arabic Emirates « fatten » their beach with billion of euros to build their short-living polders and their protective dams for a decade, the project «Lilypad» deals with a tenable solution to the water rising! Actually, facing the worldwide ecological crisis, this floating Ecopolis has the double objective not only to widen sustainabely in offshore the territories of the most developed countries such as the Monaco principality but above all to grant the housing of future climatic refugees of he next submerged ultra-marine territories such as the Polynesian atolls. New biotechnological prototype of ecologic resilience dedicated to the nomadism and the urban ecology in the sea, Lilypad travels on the water line of the oceans, from the equator to the poles following the marine streams warm ascending of the Gulf Stream or cold descending of the Labrador.”

“It is a true amphibian half aquatic and half terrestrial city, able to accommodate 50,000 inhabitants and inviting the biodiversity to develop its fauna and flora around a central lagoon of soft water collecting and purifying the rain waters. This artificial lagoon is entirely immersed ballasting thus the city. It enables to live in the heart of the subaquatic depths. The multifunctional programming is based on three marinas and three mountains dedicated respectively to the work, the shops and the entertainments. The whole set is covered by a stratum of planted housing in suspended gardens and crossed by a network of streets and alleyways with organic outline. The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of the couple Human / Nature and to explore new modes of living the sea by building with fluidity collective spaces in proximity, overwhelming spaces of social inclusion suitable to the meeting of all the inhabitants – denizen or foreign-born, recent or old, young or aged people.”

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

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.

Global Warming Threatens Florida

Does global warming have the potential to affect everything that defines Florida today? Will it really alter the lives of many Floridians? Scientists have already been observing changes in Florida consistent with the early effects of global warming. Such changes would include: Retreating and eroding shorelines, Dying coral reefs, saltwater intrusion into inland freshwater aquifers, An upswing in forest fires, Warmer air and sea-surface temperatures. Click here to view Map of climate change in Florida.

Florida Warming, A Global Problem Hits Home

As we are well aware, global warming is an increase in the earth’s average temperature caused by a build
up of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. As the atmosphere warms, glaciers melt and warming waters expand. If this scenario should happen, sea levels will rise anywhere from eight inches to two-and-a-half feet over the next century.

That’s all fine, well and good, but what does this mean for Florida directly? Global warming poses a direct threat for Florida’s people as well as it’s resources. For example, seawater is projected to advance inland up to as much as 400 feet, potentially creating the erosion of Florida’s beloved beaches. Such a catastrophe could have a severe impact on low-lying areas. If this were to take place, there will be flooding of shoreline homes as well as hotels, limiting future development.

As a result of this rise in sea levels, salt water will encroache inland on freshwater supplies feeding Florida’s cities, agriculture and tourist centers. Such saltwater encroachment will also likely inundate coastal wetlands, gravely threatening
the lower Everglades and its wildlife. To learn more about this, please go to October 2001 report by the Florida Climate Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Just like the above study, others have presented similar findings. the biggest danger, many experts warn, is that global warming will cause the sea levels to rise dramatically. the oceans have already risen 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) as it is! Jonathan Overpeck, director of the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at the University of Arizona in Tucson, states the following: “The consequences would be catastrophic,” “Even with a small sea level rise, we’re going to destroy whole nations and their cultures that have existed for thousands of years.”

Overpeck and his colleagues have used computer models to create a series of maps that lay out just how volnerable coastall cities and island countries are to rising sea levels. These maps demonstrate how a 1-meter (3-foot) rise would swamp cities all along the U.S. eastern seaboard. Most noteable, is the fact that A 6-meter (20-foot) sea level rise would submerge a large part of Florida.” To read more about this, please check out Warming to Cause Catastrophic Rise in Sea Levels?

In conclusion

Given all of this that has been revealed, is there anything that we can do to stop this all from happening? I’d like to think we can do some things, however, I do believe that we’ve passed the point of no return. We can come up with ways to cope. Next time, we will look at ways that one can cope with such catastrophic situations.