Sea Level Rise
Global “hotspots” where there is projected to be a significant change in episodic flooding is predicted by the end of the century. This map depicts regions facing potential socio-economic and environmental consequences resulting from sea level rise. (Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67736-6)
Coloured dots show the magnitude of the projected extreme sea level (ESL) at the coast, which is calculated from a variety of parameters affecting sea level rise, and the blue shading represents the approximate extent of flood-prone areas around each continent. See more on this study from nature.com HERE.
These maps show where sea level rise could potentially have significant socio-economic and environmental impacts (eg asset damage, risks to livelihood, etc.).
The Arctic region is warming at least 3 times faster than the global average. This striking and well documented change is driving such global effects as sea level rise from the mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet, and additional warming due to permafrost carbon emissions.
Nearly 600 million people live in coastal zones worldwide. If sea levels rise, they will be increasingly vulnerable to dislocation from these areas which generate approximately US$1 trillion of global wealth (Kirezci et al. 2020).
The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest on Earth (after Antarctica) and holds the equivalent of 7.4m of potential sea level rise (BedMachine v3.- Morlighem et al., 2017). This means its stability – or lack of it – has critical consequences for global sea levels and coastal communities.
The Greenland ice sheet is rapidly losing mass, which contributes directly to rising sea levels. After a period of relative stability in the 1990s, the ice sheet began losing mass at an increasing rate (Mouginot et al., 2019). Record-breaking losses – the biggest since monitoring began in the 1950s – occurred in 2012 and 2019 (IMBIE et al., 2020) contributing up to 1.5 mm per year to rising sea levels.