Photo: J. Zapata / unsplash Half of the world’s population lives near the coast. Sea-level rise can become a risk.
Photo: J. Zapata / unsplash Half of the world's population lives near the coast. Sea-level rise can become a risk. One major consequence of global warming is the rising sea level. A study conducted at Universität Hamburg's Cluster of Excellence for climate research CLICCS now shows: if we assume that sea-level rise is the most critical effect of climate change, then it is not only more sensible, but also less expensive, to set a maximum limit for sea-level rise that corresponds to the two-degree target, rather than a temperature-based target. To date, climate protection targets have consistently been oriented on the mean global temperature, just as defined in the Paris Agreement: the goal is to limit mean warming to 2 degrees, or ideally, to 1.5 degrees Celsius. A joint research team from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and Universität Hamburg has now converted these temperature-based targets into sea-level-based equivalents. The team's goal is to spark a new discourse concerning whether, and if so, how, climate targets should be adapted once we know more about the impacts of climate change.
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