Rapid and significant sea-level rise expected if global warming exceeds 2 °C, with global variation

The latest issue of Science for Environment Policy, features a study partly conducted under IMPRESSION's sister project RISES-AM, predicting the world could experience the highest ever global sea-level rise in the history of human civilisation if global temperature rises exceed 2 °C.

Under current carbon-emission rates, this temperature rise will occur around the middle of this century, with damaging effects on coastal businesses and ecosystems, while also triggering major human migration from low-lying areas. Global sea-level rise will not be uniform, and will differ for different points of the globe.

Sea-level rise is one of the biggest hazards of climate change. It threatens coastal populations, economic activity in maritime cities and fragile ecosystems. Because sea-level rise is a delayed and complex response to past temperatures, sea levels will continue to climb for centuries into the future, even after concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been stabilised.

Read more about the study and its findings in the original policy brief.


(source: "Science for Environment Policy": European Commission DG Environment News Alert Service, edited by SCU, The University of the West of England, Bristol.)


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