Sea Level Rise
Rising oceans are threatening low-lying mega cities worldwide. In this report, Dr Graham Phillips explores how scientists are turning to the distant past to predict the impact of rising sea levels.
"Average sea levels were seven to nine metres higher when the Earth was last two degrees warmer", explains Dr Phillips. That was 120,000 years ago, just before the last ice age. Such a significant increase of water volume "is going to displace nearly every mega city on the planet", warns Dr Mick O'Leary. But even a mild rise of a few centimetres will impact our lifestyles and have large consequences for the future of mankind. "By the end of this century, areas that currently flood once every hundred years, could start to flood several times every year", predicts Dr Phillips. Together with a team of scientists, Dr Phillips follows traces left by the previous rise and fall of sea levels, urging us to prepare ourselves for this "sleeping giant of climate change".
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