Climate scientists warn that without urgent and drastic action to cut carbon emissions, some of the world’s most famous landmarks could be underwater by 2050.
Much of Buckingham Palace could be underwater, according to Climate Central, a nonprofit based in Princeton, New Jersey, that reports and analyzes the latest research in climate science.
In the study, the team looked at the effect of sea level rise if we continued the current emission path, with temperatures rising by 5.4 F (3 C) and 2.7 F (1.5 C).
Even with a rise of 2.7 Fahrenheit by 2050, the maximum increase proposed by the United Nations as part of the Paris climate agreement, there are still floods in major cities.
Even the Jeddah Tower, a skyscraper project in Saudi Arabia planned to be the first building 1 kilometer (0.6 mi) tall, will not be unscathed if we do not cut emissions.
Just released! 1000+ images/videos/maps of 100+ coastal cities' potential futures, depending on how much global heating is limited in the coming decades: https://t.co/8t060aiybZ #ClimateCrisis #COP26 #PicturingOurFuture
— Climate Central (@ClimateCentral) October 12, 2021
Examples include: Plaza de la Catedral in Havana, Cuba, which would remain relatively intact at increase 2.7 F, but at 5.4 F would be almost completely submerged.
The researchers say their work “illustrates the transient opportunity to reduce future losses to coastal cities due to sea-level rise”, demonstrating the need for urgent emissions cuts.
The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, identifies places that could be saved or lost in the long-term as a result of current climate action.
It was released ahead of the United Nations COP26 climate conference, scheduled for November 1-12 in Glasgow, Scotland.
In these negotiations, decisions and commitments will be made on the level of economic change that countries are willing to offer to reduce emissions.
If nothing changes, and we continue on a path of 5.4 F above pre-industrial levels by 2050, hundreds of coastal cities and the lands where up to a billion people live today, are at risk of permanent flooding.
This research, combined with data and images from Google Earth, provides an accurate representation of future water levels at more than 200 coastal sites around the world.
The set of images, in line with the new study, is called Imaging Our Future, and includes video simulations and realistic representations of sea levels centuries into the future around famous landmarks and neighborhoods.
A new interactive map in Climate Central’s Coastal Hazard Checker compares potential future tides, based on different levels of warming.
The map is based on centuries-old sea-level projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as the most advanced global model of coastal elevation, CoastalDEM.
The Copernicus Marine Service’s Ocean Report, published last month, revealed that sea levels worldwide were rising at an “alarming rate” of 0.12 inches per year.
The new study shows that if we don’t reduce emissions dramatically and quickly, much of the world will be underwater.
Ocean observations are essential to improving climate modeling capacity and understanding key processes in order to develop robust information for decision makers on future climate change.
Another study, published in July, revealed that climate change could put 410 million people along coastal areas around the world at risk of rising sea levels by 2100, more than 53 percent more than current estimates.
A team led by the NUS Institute for Environmental Research in the Netherlands found that there are 267 million people living on land less than six feet above sea level.
The researchers used a three-foot projection of sea-level rise to see what climate change might hold for the world 79 years from now.