May 20 (UPI) -- Rising sea levels caused by man-made climate change will see hundreds of millions of people forced to flee inland from coasts even if the rise in the global temperature stays within the 1.5 degrees Celsius target of the Paris Climate Agreement, a British and American team of scientists said Tuesday.
With an estimated 1 billion people around the world living less than 33 feet above sea level and around 230 million at 3 feet 3 inches or less, even 8 inches of rise by 2050 would result in average global flood losses of $1 trillion or more a year for the world's 136 largest coastal cities, according to their study published in the Communications, Earth and Environment journal.
The scientists from the universities of Durham, Bristol, Wisconsin-Madison and Massachusetts Amherst synthesized multiple lines of evidence to show that a 1.5 degrees Celsius would result in unmanagable sea level rise and that even if it remained at the current 1.2 degrees Celsius of heating a rise of several meters could be expected in the coming centuries.
With the melting ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica now exceeding thermal expansion of the oceans as the main driver, that level of sea rise would cause extensive loss and damage to coastal populations and make adaptation measures, which have long lead times, more challenging to implement.
