Scientists long believed that the collapse of the gigantic ice sheets in
Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years, with sea level
possibly rising as little as seven inches in this century, about the
same amount as in the 20th century.
But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica.
As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account,
many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three
feet by 2100 — an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a
threat to coastal regions the world over.
And the calculations suggest that the rise could conceivably exceed six
feet, which would put thousands of square miles of the American
coastline under water and would probably displace tens of millions of
people in Asia.
The scientists say that a rise of even three feet would inundate
low-lying lands in many countries, rendering some areas uninhabitable.
It would cause coastal flooding of the sort that now happens once or
twice a century to occur every few years. It would cause much faster
erosion of beaches, barrier islands and marshes. It would contaminate
fresh water supplies with salt.
In the United States, parts of the East Coast and Gulf Coast would be
hit hard. In New York, coastal flooding could become routine, with large
parts of Queens and Brooklyn especially vulnerable. About 15 percent of
the urbanized land in the Miami region could be inundated. The ocean
could encroach more than a mile inland in parts of North Carolina.
Abroad, some of the world’s great cities — London, Cairo, Bangkok,
Venice and Shanghai among them — would be critically endangered by a
three-foot rise in the sea.
Climate scientists readily admit that the three-foot estimate could be
wrong. Their understanding of the changes going on in the world’s land
ice is still primitive. But, they say, it could just as easily be an
underestimate as an overestimate. One of the deans of American coastal
studies, Orrin H. Pilkey of Duke University, is advising coastal communities to plan for a rise of at least five feet by 2100.
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