Philippines: threatened by the RISING SEA LEVELS

I felt the need to share this alarming fact about the negative effects of GLOBAL WARMING to our land. I don't intend to scare you but this is the truth! The map of the world may have to be redrawn if the sea level would continuously rise until the end of the century. Among the countries that is pointed to be severely affected is the Philippines. Our land is on its way to extreme catastrophic climate change and if the government will not take an ambitious move to avert a disaster like this, then many Filipinos will be put to grave risk.

FYI:

Sea level rise can be defined as an increase in sea level caused by global warming through two main processes: the thermal expansion of sea water and the rapid melting of land ice.

The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) projects an increase of temperature ranging between 1.1 and 6.40 C over the next century, necessarily entailing a reduction of the amount of ice. As a result, sea levels could rise 10 to 23 inches by 2100.

A third of the world’s population living within 50 km of the coasts and a great proportion and a large proportion of them live much closer to the shoreline. Even a modest sea level rise could inundate low-lying regions, accelerate coastal erosion and force the relocation of communities and infrastructures.

Although it is not well established how fast the ice sheet will melt, if the Greenland and the West and East Antarctica ice sheets were to melt, it would be enough to raise the sea level by approximately 65 meters. The EPA approximates that 10,000 square miles of land would be erased by a two-foot rise in sea level. A one-foot rise in sea level might well translate to a 200-foot retreat of shoreline. In addition, the IPCC suggests that by 2080, sea level rise could convert as much as 33 percent of the world’s coastal wetlands to open water (IPCC 2007).

Sea level rise is also expected to make coastal cities more vulnerable to extreme weather (such as hurricanes) as well as to destroy important ecosystems such as wetlands and mangroves. Rising sea level inundates low-lying lands, erodes shorelines, exacerbates flooding, and increases the salinity of estuaries and aquifers. Islands are particularly exposed as many are gradually facing the loss of their fresh water supply due to salt-water intrusion. Low-lying coastal areas and deltas (the land where rivers feed into the ocean) house at least 300 million people and are particularly threatened by sea level rise.

Some developing countries are especially exposed to sea level rise due to their low- lying nature and limited financial resources to respond. Among the most vulnerable are countries with large populations in deltaic coastal regions such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and Egypt.

Two populous island nations, the Philippines and Indonesia, have millions who face displacement from their homes from sea level rise. Several small island state nations including the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu in the Pacific could face extinction within this century if rates of sea level rise accelerate.

source

The projected effects of climate change to the archipelago:

An indicative one-meter rise in sea level for example is projected to affect 64 out of 81 provinces, covering at least 703 out of 1,610 municipalities and inundating almost 700 million square meters of land. A one meter rise in global sea level can occur sooner with the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets if global carbon dioxide emissions are not immediately curbed. In the worst case scenario involving the complete melting of the said ice sheets, global sea level is projected to rise from between seven to twelve meters.

It is really alarming to even imagine what will happen to us with the threat of the rising sea levels. Knowing that Albay is among the low-lying regions in the archipelago, i fear that one day all of us will be permanently displaced from our homes. I may be reacting exaggerated, but you see, climate change is no joke and we've already seen its effects, the unprecedented strength and number of super typhoons that had hit us in the recent years are just some of the indications. I just hope that our present government will take action in possibly averting this catastrophe, even if this means relocation to millions of Filipinos to safer grounds.