Journalists and scientists from the NGO Climate Central have designed a tool to observe the effects of rising sea levels on cities depending on the increase in global temperature. Several French cities are threatened.
More than 180 cities and places around the globe have been modeled to observe the consequences of a more or less significant rise in water levels, caused by global warming.
On a dedicated website, Internet users can move the cursor of the increase in global temperature (from 1.5 ° C to 4 ° C) and observe the effects on a particular city.
The Saint-André Cathedral in Bordeaux with its feet in the water
Three French cities are part of the experience: Bordeaux, Nice and Anglet. Thus, according to the Climate Central model (available below), Saint-André Cathedral in Bordeaux will one day or another have its feet in the water if we maintain our current trajectory in terms of carbon emissions (i.e. 3 ° C of global warming).
In Europe, researchers show that the cities of London, Glasgow, Copenhagen, Dublin, Seville, Catania and even Split are threatened in the more or less long term by rising water levels. Asia, which has nine of the ten highest-risk mega-cities, will be the hardest hit continent.
An inescapable phenomenon
Even if humanity manages to limit warming to 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, sea levels will rise for centuries to flood cities currently inhabited by half a billion people, estimate the scientists.
The phenomenon could continue beyond 2100 under the effect of warming water and melting ice, regardless of the speed of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
5% of the world’s population at risk
“About 5% of the world’s population currently live on land below the level that will be reached at high tide as a result of carbon dioxide already accumulated in the atmosphere by human activity,” told the agency France-Presse Ben Strauss, President of Climate Central.
The current concentration of CO2 is 50% higher than the pre-industrial level and the average temperature on the Earth’s surface has increased by 1.1 ° C. This is already enough to raise sea levels by nearly two meters, whether it takes two or ten centuries, warns Ben Strauss.
The 1.5 ° C limit set out in the Paris Agreement and which countries around the world will try to maintain at the COP26 summit in Glasgow next month could therefore result in a rise in water levels of nearly three meters on the long term.