Sea levels are rising at an extraordinary pace. Here's what to know. Seas are predicted to rise a foot by 2050, regardless of how much global carbon emissions can be reduced.
The simple answer is no. The whole world will never be underwater. But our coastlines would be very different. If all the ice covering Antarctica , Greenland, and in mountain glaciers around the world were to melt, sea level would rise about 70 meters (230 feet).
By 2050, sea level along contiguous U.S. coastlines could rise as much as 12 inches (30 centimeters) above today's waterline, according to researchers who analyzed nearly three decades of satellite observations.
By 2050, “moderate” (typically damaging) flooding is expected to occur, on average, more than 10 times as often as it does today, and can be intensified by local factors.
The high-end global mean sea-level rise is now projected to be up to 1.3-1.6 meters for strong warming in 2100.
At 5-6 meters of sea level rise we would see the loss of the southern 1/3rd of Florida and many of the major cities of the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the U.S. At 10 meters of sea level rise, New York City would be submerged.
Over the past 100 years, global temperatures have risen about 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F), with sea level response to that warming totaling about 160 to 210 mm (with about half of that amount occurring since 1993), or about 6 to 8 inches.
By 2030, almost all countries will experience “extreme hot” weather every other year due mainly to greenhouse gas pollution by a handful of big emitters, according to a paper published Thursday by Communications Earth & Environment, reinforcing forecasts that the coming year will be one of the hottest on record.
Under a 2050 climate scenario developed by NASA, continuing growth of the greenhouse emission at today's rate could lead to additional global warming of about 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050.
The study, published Jan. 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides new evidence that global warming is on track to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial averages in the early 2030s, regardless of how much greenhouse gas emissions rise or fall in the coming decade.
A 1-foot rise in sea level swallows up more coastline than you think. For every 1 foot of vertical rise in sea level, 100 feet of shoreline is swallowed up if the slope is just 1% or more. That's a typical slope for most coastlines.
Sea levels were 550 feet (170 m) higher in the late Cretaceous period, about 80 million years ago, than today, shows a new reconstruction of historic ocean basins published in the journal Science.
There will be more plastic than fish
Rivers of pollution flow into the ocean every day, with little sign of slowing down. Marine animals and birds now regularly eat plastic, and so do humans. It is estimated that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea than fish. As the plastic piles up, fish disappear.
Water may not be lost from the earth's atmosphere; however, an apparent loss does exist from the “free” water in the atmosphere. It has been absorbed by the increase in living beings (people an animals) and therefore not available in abundant quantities as in previous generations.
Bottom line: New evidence from Harvard suggests that – a few billion years ago – Earth was a true water world, completely covered by a global ocean, with little if any visible land.
When waters run dry, people can't get enough to drink, wash, or feed crops, and economic decline may occur. In addition, inadequate sanitation—a problem for 2.4 billion people—can lead to deadly diarrheal diseases, including cholera and typhoid fever, and other water-borne illnesses.
Though the climate of Earth will be habitable in 2100, we will be experiencing new extremes. Each decade will be different from the previous and next decade. The climate future could be quite bleak.
Since 1880, average global temperatures have increased by about 1 degrees Celsius (1.7° degrees Fahrenheit). Global temperature is projected to warm by about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050 and 2-4 degrees Celsius (3.6-7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
Drag from the chromosphere of the Sun would reduce Earth's orbit. These effects will counterbalance the impact of mass loss by the Sun, and the Sun will likely engulf Earth in about 7.59 billion years. The drag from the solar atmosphere may cause the orbit of the Moon to decay.
Just as our planet existed for over 4 billion years before humans appeared, it will last for another 4 billion to 5 billion years, long after it becomes uninhabitable for humans.
In the next 1,000 years, the amount of languages spoken on the planet are set to seriously diminish, and all that extra heat and UV radiation could see darker skin become an evolutionary advantage. And we're all set to get a whole lot taller and thinner, if we want to survive, that is.
The End Of The Ice Ages
By about 13,000 years ago, sea level had risen to around 70 metres below its present level. One thousand years later, it had risen to about 50 metres below present. These dates give us a ballpark for how old stories of flooding may be.
There is still some uncertainty about the full volume of glaciers and ice caps on Earth, but if all of them were to melt, global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet.