Rising Seas ~ Millions Homeless

Millions of people could become homeless in the Asia-Pacific region by 2070 due to rising sea levels, with Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, China and Pacific islands most at risk.

global warming in the Asia Pacific region could cause sea levels to rise by up to 16 cm (six inches) by 2030 and up to 50 cm (19 inches) by 2070.

rising sea level  - the results of a warming atmosphere -- are making trouble for Tuvalu

(climate change report by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)

Rising temperatures will also result in increased rainfall during the summer monsoon season in Asia and could cause more intense tropical storms, inundating low-lying coastal villages.

Sea level rise between 30 to 50 cm (11 to 19 inches) would affect more than 100,000 km (62,140 miles) of coast, particularly China's Pearl Delta and Bangladesh's delta.

As sea level rise exceeds half a meter, the area affected in the Asia-Pacific region rises to over half a million square kilometres, affecting hundreds of millions of people.

A 36-inch increase in sea levels would swamp every city on the East Coast of the United States, from Miami to Boston.




A rise of that magnitude can definitely generate problems for coastal zones, near which 50% of humanity lives (to be precise, half the humanity lives within 50 km from the coast).

http://israel-environment.tripod.com/rising-ocean.jpg A12_s1_1



D. Hinrichsen Coasts along the Philippine island of Negros suffer from erosion caused by rising sea


The world's coastal wetlands are disappearing. Around the world, about 182,000 square kilometers of mangrove wetlands provide a habitat for over 2,000 species of fish, shellfish, invertebrates, and plants.

Seagrass beds also are vanishing. These underwater ocean meadows support a wide variety of commercially valuable species of fish and shellfish. Although no overall estimates of damage are available, these ecosystems appear to be shrinking near virtually all inhabited coastal areas



http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/m15/m15chap5.shtml







Coastal communities susceptible to extreme weather events such as cyclones and king tides could be most vulnerable.

This includes the Sunshine Coast in Australia.


http://econews.org.au/story1_6.php

And we all know that Cairns is one of the most susceptible places in the world, both to sealevel rises and cyclone surges.

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