That Sinking Feeling: Rising Sea Level Isn’t Cities’ Only Water Worry

flood-bangkok
Bangkok Floods 2011 – Pinklao Bridge area. Photo source: ©© Philipp Roeland

Excerpts;

Some of the world’s expanding coastal cities face a two-pronged threat involving water: excessive groundwater pumping can cause the ground below to sink at the same time that sea levels are rising.

That interplay between subsiding land and rising seas highlights an underappreciated risk in global climate change, according to scientists.

It’s not known how many people live on coastal lands that are sinking due to excessive groundwater pumping, but about 150 million live within 3.3 feet of today’s high-tide mark…

Read Full Article, NBC News

Parting the Sea to Save Venice, NASA / Earth Observatory (03-30-2014

Floods show what lies ahead for sinking Bangkok, AFP (11-09-2011

What New York City Can Learn From Its Relationship With The Sea, Huffington Green (10-31-2014)

Cutting Specific Atmospheric Pollutants Would Slow Sea Level Rise, NSF (04-19-2013)
With coastal areas bracing for rising sea levels, new research indicates that cutting emissions of certain pollutants can greatly slow sea level rise this century. Scientists found that reductions in four pollutants that cycle comparatively quickly through the atmosphere could temporarily forestall the rate of sea level rise by roughly 25 to 50 percent. The researchers focused on emissions of four heat-trapping pollutants: methane, tropospheric ozone, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon…

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