Anthony Ricigliano — Mitigating Disaster

The study reveals that sea levels will rise for the next several hundred years regardless of whether the proposed deep cuts in emissions to lower average temperatures around the world are enacted or not.

The best-case scenario, according to the study, would be for a slowdown in the sea level rise. Part of this gloomy outlook is not based on melting ice at all but on the expansion of existing seawater. This thermal expansion would occur at the molecular level of water due to the warming of oceans at progressively deeper levels. Warming (and molecular expansion) would extend to deeper levels even if ocean Anthony Ricigliano Surface Temperatures cooled, due to heat continuing to greater depths.

Estimates of sea level increases vary depending on how successful the wide variety of programs to reduce or eliminate emission is in reducing global average temperatures. If the deepest emission cuts were to be enacted, estimates are for sea level increases of over 10 inches (24 cm) by the year 2300. If emission reductions are at the low end of estimates or aren't reduced at all, the increase in sea level could be over four feet (139 cm) over today's levels.

Approximately 10% of the world's population lives in areas that would be affected (or devastated) by rising sea levels. In the U.S., threatened areas would include the Gulf States as well as several areas along both coasts. Hopes for Anthony Ricigliano Mitigation of the projected rise in sea levels currently rest on negotiations on a global climate pact that participants hope would be in force by the year 2020. With ratification unlikely before 2015 and over 190 countries involved in the process, full adoption of the pact by all nations could push the timeline well past 2020.

Despite the inevitable rise in sea levels, taking aggressive measures in emissions regulations to slow the increases in global average temperatures would in turn slow down the rise in sea levels. This slowing would allow for protective measures and technological advances to help mitigate the damage resulting from the displacement of up to 10% of the world's population.