Given the amount of greenhouse gases that humans have already added to the Earth’s atmosphere, the world will certainly experience an increase in sea level of about 5 meters in the coming decades, said climate scientist Benjamin Strauss:Climate crisis podcast. ”
“It’s in that range, you know, 5 feet plus or minus. And that’s because we’ve already warmed the planet by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.1 Celsius, “Strauss, president and CEO of Climate Central, a nonprofit that seeks to educate policymakers and the public about the threats they pose, told Yahoo. climate change. News. “Think of it this way: if you dumped an ice truck in the middle of Phoenix, everyone would know it was going to melt. But it takes time to melt. The same is true of the large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, and glaciers around the world. We raised the thermostat. We had already warmed the planet by a few degrees, but they were just beginning to respond with melting. And that’s why we have all this extra sea level in the plan, and it’s enough, I’m afraid to say, it’s hard to imagine the long-term future of South Florida, let’s say, right, with the sea level already in the plan. “
Strauss, who testified before Congress about the number of U.S. homes at risk from rising sea levels due to climate change, warned that according to current estimates, the sea will rise by 2 to 3 meters by the end of the century and will continue. growing in the coming decades. However, the fact that about 5 meters of sea level rise is already embedded in the future of the planet is for Strauss an even greater incentive for the world to unite and prevent that number from rising further.
“I think we can help ourselves a lot by slowing down these changes,” he said.
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