Sea Levels Still Will Rise Because of Global Warming: Just Not as Much as We Thought
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY
on 09. 5.08

In the past couple of weeks I’ve felt a bit like the bringer of climate change doom here at TreeHugger. Well, here’s something to balance all that out, at least slightly. From Yahoo News/Reuters:
Worst Case: 6.6 Feet Sea Level Rise by 2100
It appears that previous predictions about sea levels rising by 20 feet or more by the end of the this century overstated the case a bit. Tad Pfeffer of the University of Colorado, along with scientists from the University of Montana the University of California at San Diego now say that a “realistic worst-case scenario” for sea level rise is about 6.6 feet (about 2 meters). The same scientists say that about 2.6 feet (80 centimeters) is more likely.
Coastal Cities Will Still Flood, Displace Millions
They do point out though that even this more modest amount of sea level rise would cause major problems in coastal areas and still could result in millions of people losing their homes—Bangladesh would still be devastated; New Orleans, Amsterdam and Venice could easily be inundated.
Thought I’d point out that last part before anyone jumps to their keyboards to type a climate change skeptic “Gotcha! I knew they were lying” comment. Climate change is still very much real, very much happening and still could displace millions of people.
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