While the University of Southampton Visiting Fellow would like more international cooperation on climate change, mitigation’s impact on the oceans would be limited. “Mitigation will reduce and delay sea level rise, but some climate-induced sea level rise will occur irrespective of future emissions,” he says.
“The ocean has the lowest response to mitigation of any part of the climate system, because only the top of the ocean has seen the recent warming. The bulk of the ocean still has to warm in response to that change, and that will lead to thermal expansion, so this process just keeps on going.”
This was termed the ‘commitment to sea level rise’ by the UN Framework on Climate Change. While coastal protection is daunting, Dr Nicholls sees it as the only option, noting London and Amsterdam are already creating safeguards against four to five metre scenarios. “About 85% of the world’s coast should be protected, reflecting the fact the coast has high value,” he says.
“Protection isn’t actually terribly expensive compared to those values in a cost-benefit sense, so it’s an option that should be on the table when we evaluate decisions.” He says even if no action were taken until 2025, when costs could be 100 times greater, protecting one-third of the coast would make sense....
Sunset at Eighty Mile Beach in Western Australia, shot by Nachoman-au, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
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