Scientists: Miami and New Orleans are now doomed

“The total area includes 1,185-1,825 municipalities where land that is home to more than half of the current population would be affected, among them at least 21 cities exceeding 100,000 residents”. Credit: Flickr ” I would avoid buying property in South Florida in particular”, Benjamin Strauss, lead author of the study, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

A new report is arguing that due to carbon emissions, there is nothing that can be done to save the cities of Miami and New Orleans – but with a lot of effort by world leaders, perhaps something can be done to save countless other cities and towns.

“Our actions today determine sea-level rise tomorrow”, said Strauss, from the scientific group Climate Central, in a statement.

Researchers at the Climate Central have run the process through a simulation and observed how the worst case scenario will play out.

The land, on which 20 to 31 million people live, will submerged at a few point in future if sea levels continue to rise the same way as they are right now.

An unabated emissions scenario sees Florida as the most vulnerable state, holding 40% or more of the population living in soon-to-be flooded areas.

The carbon scenarios, called representative concentration pathways (RCP), are given numerical values that represent policies ranging from “extreme” cuts to “unchecked pollution”.

The researchers estimated that the sea level rise will reach a median level of 7.9 feet, or 2.4 meters, to 23 feet, or 7.1 meters in the end of this century. The long-term SLR projection is about seven times the consensus estimate for the global increase by 2100. It lets you choose any United States city or zip code to see what rising seas will do to your nominated address, based on a range of projections about how high sea levels could increase. “It implies a large vitality transition on the size of an industrial revolution”, he mentioned. But many fear that the West Antarctic ice sheet collapse is evitable and irreversible too. The quantity of ice melt at certain temperatures is easier to estimate, however, meaning it’s possible to correlate “lock in” levels of sea rise with established temperature changes, according to researchers. The huge masses of ice are already experiencing unprecedented melting, which add to the global sea level rise.

“Just how quickly this might happen, however – are we talking 500 years? 200 years? – could be very a lot unsure”, Mann stated.

New research, posted on Monday, said that if co2 fuel secretion tend to boost as “business as usual”, world level could climb equally as much as 33 foot by universal normal. The 2.3 meter rise would take place over about 2,000 years.

To substantially blunt the threat, emissions reductions would have to be bigger than those pledged by the United States and more than 145 other countries as part of a new U.N. deal to tackle climate change due to be agreed in December.

The paper argues that the opportunity to limit global warming to 2 degrees C “appears to be closing” but that an analysis of the costs and benefits of different carbon-control scenarios may help formulate policy.

“The results offer a new way to compare different emissions scenarios or policies and suggest that the long-term viability of hundreds of coastal municipalities and land now inhabited by tens of millions of persons hang in the balance”, the paper says. “That’s why the stakes for Philadelphia are greater than virtually every other American metropolis within the distinction between what occurs if we minimize carbon emissions and we don’t”.