Jay GW
January 11, 2005, 03:28 AM
It sounds insignificant alongside the Indian Ocean tsunami, yet an almost imperceptible annual rise in the world's oceans may pose a huge threat to ports, coasts and islands by 2100.
The leaders of 37 small island states are meeting in Mauritius to discuss an early warning system to protect against tsunamis and a creeping rise in ocean levels, which is blamed widely on global warming.
Rising sea levels, now about two millimetres a year, could swamp low-lying countries like Tuvalu in the Pacific or the Maldives in the Indian Ocean if temperatures keep rising.
They could also lead to hugely expensive damage worldwide.
"It's often presented as a problem only for developing nations," Mike MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs at the Climate Institute, said.
"(But) developed countries will be very much at risk because so much infrastructure is at sea level."
Many of the world's biggest cities are near coasts, including Calcutta, Dhaka, Lagos, London, New York, Shanghai and Tokyo.
Flooding could cause billions of dollars of damage. In Bangladesh, 17 million people live less than one metre above sea level.
Thermal expansion
Mr McCracken and some other experts say that recent evidence of a faster-than-expected melt of Greenland and Antarctic ice indicates that the rise in sea levels would be in the upper half of a nine to 88 centimetre range projected by the UN's climate panel by 2100.
Seas rose by 10 to 20 centimetres in the 20th Century, according to the UN scientists.
Thermal expansion - water gets bigger as it warms - would be the main cause of rising seas while melting glaciers and ice caps would add volume.
The UN panel projects that overall temperatures will rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees centigrade by 2100, mainly because of a build-up of carbon dioxide from cars, factories and power plants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1279406.htm
The leaders of 37 small island states are meeting in Mauritius to discuss an early warning system to protect against tsunamis and a creeping rise in ocean levels, which is blamed widely on global warming.
Rising sea levels, now about two millimetres a year, could swamp low-lying countries like Tuvalu in the Pacific or the Maldives in the Indian Ocean if temperatures keep rising.
They could also lead to hugely expensive damage worldwide.
"It's often presented as a problem only for developing nations," Mike MacCracken, chief scientist for climate change programs at the Climate Institute, said.
"(But) developed countries will be very much at risk because so much infrastructure is at sea level."
Many of the world's biggest cities are near coasts, including Calcutta, Dhaka, Lagos, London, New York, Shanghai and Tokyo.
Flooding could cause billions of dollars of damage. In Bangladesh, 17 million people live less than one metre above sea level.
Thermal expansion
Mr McCracken and some other experts say that recent evidence of a faster-than-expected melt of Greenland and Antarctic ice indicates that the rise in sea levels would be in the upper half of a nine to 88 centimetre range projected by the UN's climate panel by 2100.
Seas rose by 10 to 20 centimetres in the 20th Century, according to the UN scientists.
Thermal expansion - water gets bigger as it warms - would be the main cause of rising seas while melting glaciers and ice caps would add volume.
The UN panel projects that overall temperatures will rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees centigrade by 2100, mainly because of a build-up of carbon dioxide from cars, factories and power plants.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1279406.htm