Sea level rise | 2 of 2

Also, if you are interested in listening to this episode instead, here is the link to it: Sea Level Rise | 2 of 2

As I have stated in the past episode, sea-level rise is extremely hazardous and would put millions of lives at risk or their living places at risk. Harold R Wanless states that there will be 3 feet of sea-level rise in 2050 if we leave the problem untended. Shanghai’s average altitude is 4 meters, with most of it even lower. The Netherlands has an altitude in the minus. Cities like Miami; countries like the Maldives would be completely underwater, and many state’s freshwater systems would crash. Now all these big cities are facing tremendous life and death problems. And what are they doing to save themselves from destruction?

A list from the Clean Ocean Action states that there are ten tips on sea-level rise and they are the following: Reduce your footprint｜Protect wetlands｜Let it soak in｜Plant more plants and save trees｜Reduce your energy use｜Obey “no-wake” zones｜Leave the car at home｜Watch what you’re dune｜Know your flood zone｜Push for a Climate Action Plan.

Some of the above are personalized, such as leaving the car at home, others are more for city developers, such as let it soak in, which means that hard surfaces would prevent water from permeating into the ground and lead to an increase in runoff and erosion, especially in cities.

But individuals and a city would not be of many efforts. Solving the problem of sea-level rise can be done only by the power of countries as a whole.

A growing number of cities are stepping up to the challenge of sea-level rise. Most of them have no choice. Alongside mitigating their carbon footprints through reducing emissions, there are three ways that states and cities are taking action. First, they are fielding hard engineering projects like sea walls, surge barriers, water pumps, and overflow chambers to keep water out. Second, they are adopting environmental approaches involving land recovery and the restoration of mangroves and wetlands to help cities cope with floodwater inundation. The third strategy involves people-oriented measures including urban design, building resilience, and retreating after all other options have been exhausted.

The good news is that coastal cities are not starting from scratch — most of them have deep stores of knowledge and expertise. For centuries, cities bordering oceans and waterways have had to contend with local sea-level fluctuations and periodic storms. Many coastal cities have experimented with a combination of all three types of measures for hundreds of years. But past successes do not necessarily guarantee future safety. Today’s cities are different from their predecessors. Many of them are of unprecedented size and complexity. Complicating matters, sea levels are rising more rapidly than in the past, in some cases overwhelming local capacities to respond.

Even if we stop all greenhouse emissions today — which is not exactly possible — sea levels will continue to rise. That’s not to say that what we do doesn’t matter. It matters a great deal. But the sea level rise we see today is the consequence of global warming that started from emissions released decades ago. Large bodies of water like the oceans have a great heat capacity — they warm up slowly and keep that temperature for a long time. This means that changes in sea level lag behind the warming of the atmosphere. Today, the worst impacts are mostly felt in places where sea level rise has combined with sinking land, also known as subsidence.

Subsidence is a natural process, but the weight of high-rise buildings and the emptying of underground water reservoirs tends to speed it up. That’s why sinking coastal megacities like Jakarta in Indonesia may suffer a great deal from just 20–40cm of sea-level rise. More frequent cyclones and storm surges are also expected as climate change causes more extreme weather. Sea level rise will likely amplify the impacts of these extreme events. This has already been happening for a while, with deadly effects. In Fiji, storms and elevated sea levels combined to cause devastating floods that claimed at least 11 lives and left 12,000 people temporarily homeless in January 2009.

So we can see that stopping sea-level rise is definitely a priority on the list and we need every one of all the humans out there to accomplish it.