Sea level rise will cause ‘catastrophic inland migration’, scientists warn

Sea level rise will become unmanageable at just 1.5C of global heating and
lead to “catastrophic inland migration”, the scientists behind a new
study have warned.
This scenario may unfold even if the average level of
heating over the last decade of 1.2C continues into the future. The loss of
ice from the giant Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has quadrupled since
the 1990s due to the climate crisis and is now the principal driver of sea
level rise.
The international target to keep global temperature rise below
1.5C is already almost out of reach. But the new analysis found that even
if fossil fuel emissions were rapidly slashed to meet it, sea levels would
be rising by 1cm a year by the end of the century, faster than the speed at
which nations could build coastal defences. The world is on track for
2.5C-2.9C of global heating, which would almost certainly be beyond tipping
points for the collapse of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets. The
melting of those ice sheets would lead to a “really dire” 12 metres of
sea level rise.
Guardian 20th May 2025,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/20/sea-level-rise-migration
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