Rising sea levels could swamp major cities and displace almost 200 million people, scientists say

The risk posed by rising seas may be even more dire than we thought. A provocative new study co-authored by Lab co-director Robert Kopp of Rutgers University, suggests that as Earth’s climate continues to warm and the planet’s ice sheets continue to melt, seas could inundate coastal cities around the world, submerging vast swaths of land and displacing almost 200 million people by the end of the century. If we continue to take a “business as usual” approach to carbon emissions, sea level rise could plausibly exceed two meters (about seven and a half feet) by 2100, the study showed. A rise of that magnitude — which is more than twice as high as the upper limit predicted in a 2013 U.N. climate assessment — would have “profound consequences for humanity,” the scientists behind the new research concluded.