Hey there, welcome to Life Noggin!
Oh hello copyright free cartoon character.
Welcome!
Our planet is changing, and it's not looking good.
Go back in time, between the years of 1961 and 1990, and on average you’d have statistically
super hot days about 37 times a year.
But just last year, in 2017, we clocked around 60 extremely hot days!
That’s nearly double!
This does mean we can all go to the beach a lot more, but what if when we got to the
coast there was less and less land to sit on every year?
This is called sea level rise, and it’s both real and pretty terrifying.
Eventually, our beaches and cities might disappear.
I'm talking to you New York.
You should pay attention.
You see, as the Earth gets hotter, seawater expands, and ice sheets, glaciers, and frozen
places like Greenland and Antarctica add water to the ocean as they melt.
Put together, the sea level rises and as it does so, it needs a place to expand into,
and the only place is further up onto the land.
Based off of current models on sea level rise, within around 10 years we could see the ocean
creeping up on certain islands and low-lying areas throughout the world.
Given enough time, it’s possible that they could be covered by the ocean.
In fact, the Solomon Islands in the Pacific have already started to vanish.
The Solomon Islands, which are made up of volcanic islands and coral atolls, have lost
five vegetated reef islands, with another six islands experiencing severe shoreline
recession — all forcing people to move and rebuild!
This may not seem like a big deal to all my friends out there that are surrounded by a
bunch of land, but eight of the largest cities in the world are actually near the ocean.
Hey, cmon, New York, pay attention.
This is for you!
Eventually, a rising sea level would cause that water to spill into some of these cities.
According to a recent study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data, the global
sea level isn’t even just rising at a steady rate.
Researchers found that, in recent decades, the rate of global sea level rise has actually
been /accelerating/.
The assessment went on further to say that if the rate of ocean rise keeps up at this
pace, the world’s sea level will rise about 65 centimeters by 2100 — which could cause
significant problems for coastal cities.
So yeah, definitely not good.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have weighed in on this too,
concluding that by 2100, they’re very confident that the global mean sea level will rise by
at least 20 centimeters, but that the increase might even get up to as much as 200 centimeters!
But it’s not like this problem is just going to wait until 2100.
Some of the Netherlands is already below sea level, protected by walls and levees.
That helps, but this doesn’t seem like an issue that we can just engineer ourselves
out of.
According to the National Academy of Engineering, flooding risks can never be fully eliminated
by walls or other protective structures no matter how large or sturdy they are.
Plus, as things progressed, more coastal infrastructure could be destroyed by worsening hurricane
and typhoons So, yeah, we should probably get to saving the planet.
I see New York is panicking, and trying to help.
Very good!
So would this effect you?
Do you live next to an ocean?
Are there any other natural disasters you'd like me to talk about next?
Curious to know what technology will look like in 100 years?
Check out this video!
There is some pretty life changing inventions predicted to come about in the next century.
Flying cars, once thought to be a thing of just science fiction, are actually progressing
at lightning speed.
A lot of the technology already exists.
as always, my name is Blocko, this has been Life Noggin, don't forget to keep on thinking!