Global warming is an issue because in the next 50 years
many of the islands in the pacific will be underwater or severley
damaged and unable to be lived on by the many pacific islanders that do today,
some of these islanders only living 4 metres above sea level.
These islanders will loose their homes, family and jobs, and would find it incredibly
hard to adapt to the rapidly rising sea, It could also harm important coastal
ecosystems such as mangrove forests and coral reef's. But this is also the next step of global
warming and a step closer to the biggest problem of all.
Global sea level rise and cause havoc to all the world.
Migration to coastal areas is increasingly common in many countries around the world, developed and developing alike. Settlements and urban centres in coastal regions have expanded more rapidly than elsewhere. Of the 39 big metropolitan areas with a population over 5 million, sixty percent are located within 100km of the coast. These include twelve of the biggest 16 with populations with more than 10 million although the majority of people live in smaller settlements in the coastal zone. High densities of people are also found in delta regions, which are even more vulnerable to flooding.
Over the 20th century as a whole, sea levels rose by an average of around 1.7mm a year with evidence that in recent years the rate of rise has increased. Latest satellite data put the rise at around 3mm a year. There are many variables - including how much the expected increases in precipitation will add to snow packs and, most importantly, our greenhouse gas emissions over the next decades. What we can expect is that even a small amount of sea level rise will have profound and largely negative effects.