Scientists carried out a study in which, with high-resolution measurements of the Earth’s elevation and using the ICESat-2 satellite of the POT, They calculated the rise in sea level and floods and the outlook is not very encouraging.
According to a report published on the website of 20 minutes who cites the researchup to 240 million people worldwide could be left homeless if the seas rose by at least two meters.
The report mentions that, previously, not-so-accurate radar-based data was used. But with the change proposed in this study, it is estimated that there will be more flooding when the sea level rises two meters.
Ronald Vernimment, a researcher at the Dutch company Data for Sustainability who led the report, explained: “Radar is unable to fully penetrate vegetation and therefore overestimates surface elevation”.
In addition, thanks to using satellite data from the US space agency, they discovered that “many coastal areas are lower than scientists thought”.
The figures of the investigation
The conclusions of the investigation indicate that, when the tide rises two metres, sea level will cover up to 2.4 times more than the observed land surface.
According to the scientists’ calculations, Some 240 million people would live below mean sea level if it rose two meters. The report adds some examples, such as most of Bangkok, Thailand, and its 10 million people.
The worst is, if the water level rises to three meters, the number of those affected would grow to 380 million, and if it reaches four meters, it would reach 496 million affected.
Some cities such as Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, and New Orleans, in the United States, have taken measures such as the creation of levees and pumping stations to prevent the rise in the sea from affecting them, but they are expensive projects and can take decades to materialize.
