According to a new study by several British scientists, rising sea levels could force millions of people away from coastlines, triggering unprecedented internal migration within many countries.
Are our cities soon to be flooded and thrown into chaos? This alarming scenario is outlined by British researchers who warn that sea level rise could become unmanageable, leading to “catastrophic migrations inland,” reports The Guardian.
The study, published on Tuesday, May 20, in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, combined data spanning up to three million years.
Grim Initial Findings
“The continued loss of ice sheet mass poses an existential threat to coastal populations worldwide,” the report states.
Massive Internal Migrations
The melting of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets—each as large as a continent—has quadrupled since the 1990s due to the climate crisis. This melting could raise sea levels and submerge large parts of the globe, causing massive internal displacement.
The increase in ice loss is largely because the goal of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C is becoming nearly impossible to achieve.
Even if fossil fuel emissions are rapidly cut to meet this target, sea levels are projected to rise by one centimeter per year by the end of the century—far faster than countries can build coastal defenses.
The study’s authors warn that the world is on track for warming of 2.5 to 2.9°C, which would inevitably cause ice sheet melt and raise sea levels by up to 12 meters in the coming years.
136 Major Coastal Cities at Risk
Currently, about 230 million people live less than one meter above today’s sea level. By 2050, rising seas could cause flood damage worth at least a billion dollars annually to the 136 largest coastal cities worldwide.
However, scientists stress that climate action can still slow sea level rise, allowing more time for adaptation and reducing human suffering.
Nonetheless, a sea level rise of at least one to two meters is now unavoidable.
In the UK, for example, just one meter of sea level rise would submerge large parts of northern and eastern regions.
“Worst-Case Scenarios” Unfolding “Almost Before Our Eyes”
Jonathan Bamber, professor at the University of Bristol, UK, says that if sea levels surpass city heights, “it becomes extremely difficult to adapt.”
“We will witness massive land migrations on a scale never seen in modern civilization,” he told The Guardian. He also noted that developing countries like Bangladesh will fare much worse than wealthier nations, such as the Netherlands, which are accustomed to holding back the waves.
With the current warming at 1.2°C, sea level rise is accelerating to rates that will become practically unmanageable before the century’s end. “We are beginning to see the worst-case scenarios unfolding almost before our eyes,” said Chris Stokes, professor at Durham University and lead author of the study.
Even if humanity succeeds in restoring the planet’s preindustrial temperature by removing CO2 from the atmosphere, it will take hundreds or even thousands of years for ice sheets to rebuild. As a result, large amounts of land are at risk of permanent loss.
