Doomsday from Rising Sea Levels

Anyone who had been paying close attention over recent years to the global warming or climate change issue would have noticed unequivocal data and photographs showing continuous and serious rising sea levels. Doomsday is really in the works for the massive populations in countless coastal urban regions, islands and low elevation delta areas all over the globe. More than 70 percent of the world's population lives on coastal plains, and 11 of the world's 15 largest cities are on coastal estuaries. There is no if, just a when. All that melting of polar ice, ice sheets and glaciers as well as thermal expansion of ever warmer water are the root causes. Beaches, freshwater fisheries, freshwater supplies, farmlands, coral reefs and atolls, and wildlife habitats are all at risk.

Talk to older people who have lived in beachfront areas and you will hear firsthand how the ocean has encroached steadily over decades, eating up beachfront property. Nevertheless, developers have never stopped creating new homes and communities in such vulnerable areas and people keep buying expensive land and homes that eventually will disappear. Apparently they just think doomsday will not happen until long after their lives. But these optimists may be wrong.

San Francisco Bay's sea level rose by 7 inches in the 20th century. New scientific findings indicate that without significant actions to fight global warming California sea level may rise by as much as 55 inches this century, and that the amount could be much higher. The impacts are unimaginable.

The shoreline in northeastern North Carolina is receding at an average rate of about 2.7 feet per year. North Carolina's famous Outer Banks are destined to disappear.

In Nigeria, Stefan Cramer an advisor to the government recently said "In 50 years with a one-meter sea level rise, two million or three million people would be homeless. By the end of the century we would have two meters and by that stage Lagos is gone as we know it."

A resident in a coastal town in India recently said that in the 1980s the sea was 300 meters from his house; today it is just 40 meters away.

The Greek coast is receding on average by 1 to 1.2 meters a year.

The Dutch have spent fortunes protecting their low level lands and billions will be spent to protect Venice, Italy in the relative near term. A Dutch plan included more than $144 billion in new spending through the year 2100 to take measures, such as broadening coastal dunes and strengthening sea and river dikes.

The U.N.'s environmental panel has warned that, at current rates, sea level would be high enough to make the island nation of the Maldives uninhabitable by 2100.

Overall, there probably is not enough money in the world to protect all the major cities that eventually will be devastated by rising sea levels.

Rising sea levels also impact areas where storm surges frequently occur, making engineered defenses, such as those used in New Orleans, ever more difficult and costly. And the double whammy is that climate change is producing more violent weather patterns creating more violent storm surges from hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis.

This global catastrophe is getting new attention because of the new 420-page book, Understanding Sea-level Rise and Variability, which is the work of more than ninety scientists from thirteen nations. While the book is very expensive, there is a great discussion on sea level rise at Wikipedia.

Now you know why investments in engineering companies that design and build systems to protect lands from rising oceans and storm surges make increasing sense.