Global warming: sea level rise, floods and climate change

April 1, 2021 0 Comments

Despite the knowledge that ocean levels have risen for many years during the era of global warming, little has been done in most parts of the world to protect coastlines. But not anymore. Sea levels have risen about eight inches in the last hundred years, and depending on how rapidly the ocean warms and further melting of the polar caps and ice sheets, the rise is expected to accelerate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates an average increase of 20 inches with a range of 6 to 37 inches by the end of the 21st century.

Statistics of the potential increase vary depending on the degree of warming and the amount of ice melting in Greenland, the world’s glaciers, and Antarctica.

The melting of Greenland

If all of Greenland’s ice melted, the sea would rise about 20 feet. If the Antarctic ice melted completely, the sea would rise 200 feet. It goes without saying that such catastrophic events are not likely in the next century, but even small amounts of melting ice would cause the sea to rise and seriously threaten the coasts of all continents.

Vulnerable cities and countries

An increase of several feet will cause flooding in much of the world, low-lying cities such as St. Petersburg, Miami, Greater New York, and New Orleans, and countries such as Bangladesh, much of Indonesia, the Netherlands, the Maldives, northern Germany, the east, and the West. the coasts of the United States, as well as the coasts of Africa and South America, will be threatened by rising sea levels and storm surges that could break through protective walls.

Preparing for floods

Cities that had previously ignored the threat to their cities have now taken steps to begin increasing the height of their seawalls. After a major storm that flooded Balboa Island in December 2010, a change in attitude toward the danger of rising sea levels has led cities like Newport Beach, California, with its highly vulnerable Balboa Island, to reconsider how to protect his city, which is only a few feet above sea level. An extremely high tide could completely flood Balboa, a densely populated neighborhood of several thousand homes.

Other California cities share the danger. San Francisco. Oakland and Ventura are also under threat. In the LA Times of March 6, 2011, he described the change in attitude as coastal cities prepare for rising sea levels. The construction of wetlands as buffers, the construction of new dikes and piers are being planned. Other coasts of the US are just as vulnerable as are coasts around the world.

Global temperature change

Each component of global warming and climate change adds multiple threats to our civilization around the world. Global temperatures rise unevenly and therefore cause uneven results. In the Arctic, rising sea surface temperatures are producing nearly ice-free summers that further increase warming trends in that area. Subsequently, global warming will increase more rapidly, further affecting ocean circulation and weather patterns. Recent findings suggest that completely ice-free Arctic summers may occur within ten years.

Global sea surface temperature has increased 0.75 degrees C (1.33 degrees F) in the last 100 years. Half of that increase has occurred in the last 30 years. The sea surface temperature in European seas is increasing faster than in the world’s oceans. Over the past 25 years, the sea surface temperature in all European seas has increased about 10 times faster than the average rate of increase over the past century.

Accelerated rise in global sea surface temperatures is a determining factor in changes in weather patterns, storm patterns, hurricanes, waterfall changes, food production, droughts, climate comfort, and climate regulation. All are further proof of the critical impact of burning fossil fuels and global warming.

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