Tens of millions of people in the country’s coastal lands might find their homes below sea level by 2120 owing to sinking and sea-level rise One in ten residents of China’s coastal cities could be living below sea level within a century, as a result of land subsidence and climate change, according to a paper published in Science. Some 16% of the mapped area of China’s major cities is sinking “rapidly” — faster than 10 millimetres every year. An even greater area, roughly 45%, is sinking at a “moderate” rate, the paper says, meaning a downward trajectory of greater than 3 mm annually. Affected cities include the capital Beijing, as well as regional capitals, including Fuzhou, Hefei and Xi’an. The situation could see one-quarter of China’s coastal lands slip below sea level within ...
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A 50-year study of salt marsh ecology from the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Mass., concludes more than 90% of the world's salt marshes could succumb to sea-level rise by 2100 Cape Cod’s salt marshes are as iconic as they are important. These beautiful, low-lying wetlands are some of the most biologically productive ecosystems on Earth. They play an outsized role in nitrogen cycling, act as carbon sinks, protect coastal development from storm surge, and provide critical habitats and nurseries for many fish, shellfish, and coastal birds. And, according to new research from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), more than 90 percent of the world’s salt marshes are likely to be underwater by the end of the century. The findings come from a 50-year study in Great Sippe...
Read MoreZombie ice from the massive Greenland ice sheet will eventually raise global sea level by at least 10 inches (27 centimeters) on its own, according to a study released Monday. Zombie or doomed ice is ice that is still attached to thicker areas of ice, but is no longer getting fed by those larger glaciers. That’s because the parent glaciers are getting less replenishing snow. Meanwhile the doomed ice is melting from climate change, said study co-author William Colgan, a glaciologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. “It’s dead ice. It’s just going to melt and disappear from the ice sheet,” Colgan said in an interview. “This ice has been consigned to the ocean, regardless of what climate (emissions) scenario we take now.” FILE PHOTO: A boat navigates at night next ...
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