Photo: JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty
The study, published on Tuesday, estimates that oceans could rise between .6 meters to 2.1 meters throughout the next century, which will lead to dozens of coastal cities disappearing from the planet.
“To us it’s a staggering difference,” Benjamin Strauss, one of the study’s authors and CEO of the non-profit Climate Central, toldNew Scientistabout the findings. “It’s a completely new perspective on the scale of this threat.”
Flooding in Houston in September 2019.Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
“There is a really huge concentration of population density in the very lowest strips of land, in the lowest places along the coast globally,” Strauss toldBusiness Insider. “It turns out within those first couple of meters [above sea-level], there are more than 3 million people per vertical inch.”
The influx of people moving inland to escape rising waters will cause massive geopolitical ramifications, the researchers warned.
“If our findings stand, coastal communities worldwide must prepare themselves for much more difficult futures than may be currently anticipated,” Strauss and co-author Scott A. Kulp wrote in the study. “Recent work has suggested that, even in the US, sea-level rise this century may induce large-scale migration away from unprotected coastlines, redistributing population density across the country and putting great pressure on inland areas.”
RELATED VIDEO:Prince WilliamSpeaks Passionately About Climate Change in Pakistan, “The Action Needs to Happen Very Soon”
“It is difficult to extrapolate such projections and their impacts to more resource-constrained developing nations, though historically, largescale migration events have posed serious challenges to political stability, driving conflict,” they continued.
The researchers suggest that more modeling of timing, locations, and intensity of migratory responses to coastal flooding is needed to reduce potential harm to millions of people.
source: people.com
