Bad news for the approximately 40% of humanity that lives near a coastal area.
A recent study shows that sea levels are rising faster than predicted by even the most pessimistic models of climate change.
Scientists from the University of Copenhagen and the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research in Norway have developed a new mathematical model to calculate the sensitivity of sea levels to rising temperatures. The study's findings were published Tuesday in the journal Ocean Science. You can read them here.
Sea level? High tide
The researchers' prediction is not at all rosy: if we want to remain in line with existing climate models and predictions, the study says, the global economy will have to further reduce carbon emissions.
By how much, exactly? By a lot. Another 200 billion metric tons are needed. “That's equivalent to about five years of emissions. Five years beyond what we had already considered,” says the co-author of the study and a geophysicist from Copenhagen Aslak Grinsted.
Wet socks
The new study says sea levels could rise by half a meter by the end of the century if temperatures soared only half a degree Celsius. At two degrees Celsius (a level of global warming which at this point is believed to be much more likely), sea level it could grow an entire meter.
The scenarios designed so far regarding sea level rise are too conservative.
It is necessary at all costs to review the models used, and above all to increase the methods and practices to reduce CO2 as much as possible.
