Rising Seas Could Displace Millions, Triggering Global Migration Crisis, Study Warns

Sea level rise will force millions of people to flee coastal regions, even at just 1.5 degrees Celsius of global heating, according to a new study. The authors of the study warn that even current warming levels could lead to multiple feet of sea level rise by the end of the century, posing dire consequences for coast-dwellers. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, suggests that even at 1.2 degrees C above the pre-industrial average—our current average level of warming—could lead to catastrophic sea level rise and mass migration. If current trends persist, “You’re going to see massive land migration on scales that we’ve never witnessed since modern civilization,” Jonathan Bamber, study co-author and glaciologist at the University of Bristol, told CNN. Seas will rise due to the rapid loss of ice sheets from Greenland and Antarctica, which has quadrupled since the 1990s and is now the biggest source of sea level rise. In the study, a team of scienti ... Read full article.