EARTH FACES 'WATERWORLD' AS GLOBAL WARMING 'LASTS CENTURIES'
The Telegraph
July 1, 2009
Original LinkEarth faces a bleak future as a "waterworld" much like the one depicted in a Hollywood blockbuster starring Kevin Costner, scientists have warned.
Large parts of London, New York, Sydney and Tokyo could be among cities submerged beneath the waves unless a massive engineering effort can protect them against the waves.
Sea-level rise is now inevitable and will happen much quicker than most of us thought -- and will last for centuries, according to experts.
Even if greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow the oceans will continue to swell as they warm and as glaciers or ice sheets slide into the sea.
The growing consensus among climate scientists is the "official" estimate of sea level rise by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- 20cm to 60cm by 2100 -- is misleading.
It could well be in the region of one to two metres -- with a small risk of an even greater rise.
In a report in New Scientist magazine, climate expert Dr Eric Rignot, of California University, said: "When we talk of sea level rising by one or two metres by 2100 remember that it is still going to be rising after 2100."
For many islands and low lying regions including much of the Netherlands, Florida and Bangladesh even small rises will spell catastrophe.
Large parts of London, New York, Sydney and Tokyo could be among cities submerged beneath the waves unless a massive engineering effort can protect them against the waves.
Dr Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said: "There is a very close and statistically highly significant correlation between the rate of sea level rise and the temperature increase above the pre-industrial background level."
His calculations suggest sea level will rise between 0.5 and 1.4 metres -- and the higher estimate is more likely because emissions have been rising faster than the IPCC's worst case scenario.
He said: "I sense than now a majority of sea level experts would agree with me that the IPCC projections are much too low."
Dr Paul Blanchon's team at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Cancun has been studying 121,000 year-old coral reefs in the Yucatan Peninsula formed during the last interglacial period when sea level peaked at about six metres higher than today.
His findings suggest at one point the sea rose three metres within between fifty and one hundred years. We just don't know if this could happen again in the 21st century.
But even the lowest and most conservative estimates are now higher than the IPCC's highest estimate.
Dr Robert Bindschadler, of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, said: "Most of my community is comfortable expecting at least a metre by the end of this century."
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