Extreme sea levels could soon become annual events

(Climate News Network, 8 Sep 2021) Extreme sea levels are inevitable. Researchers now know more about their scale. Prepare for high tides almost every year.

Those who live by the sea could soon enough be at risk from it. Extreme sea levels − those episodes of high tide, storm surge and coastal flood − that now happen only once in every century could within a lifetime be happening every year.

And this is increasingly likely even if nations act on promises made six years ago and make drastic reductions in fossil fuel use. The global warming already inevitable because of the last decades of greenhouse gas emissions makes frequent flooding ever more likely.

US, European and Australian researchers report in the journal Nature Climate Change that they used computer projections to model what would be likely to happen to sea levels at 7,283 coastal locations worldwide over the next 70 years, under a range of scenarios that saw global temperatures rise to between 1.5°C and 5°C.

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Climate News Network, 8 Sep 2021: Extreme sea levels could soon become annual events