Throughout history, man has always overcome obstacles of the natural world.  The seas have been traveled, mountains scaled, and the fruits of the earth harnessed all for the growth of mankind.  One can assume that because of the size and success of our species on the global scale, the naturally occurring problems Mother Nature presents for species of the Earth, (hunger, shelter, natural disasters); don’t work on the human race anymore.  But what happens when we’re faced with a problem that we’ve created? Will our species be able to survive with the same efficiency? In the past when it comes to man-created problems that has not been the case.  Think about past wars or disasters caused by man.  The European colonization of America caused the loss of about 35 million lives and the Second World War claimed over 70 million in just six short years.  Even the most deadly natural disaster can’t compare to the quantity of human life lost, especially if time frame is considered.  What kind of consequences should we expected from a natural problem that has been accelerated due to mankind? Rising sea levels, as a product of climate change, is a hybrid natural and man made problem that threatens all corners of the globe in some form.  The rise of sea levels is one of the most dynamic problems the human race has ever faced and it’s consequences put a massive percentage of the global population at risk.    

When global warming is discussed, the consequences that are talked about are typically mild and only reach the surface of the issue.  Hotter summers, snowless winters, and the possibility that our grandchildren may not share the Earth with polar bears seem like the most daunting consequences.  Skeptics of global warming look at these arguments and see no reason for us to change our ways or try to combat it.  In reality, “the burning of fossil fuels and other human and natural activities has released enormous amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere”, raising the temperature of the Earth’s surface to an unnatural level (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017).  Not considering the main argument pertaining to global warming’s existence; skeptics also criticize the accuracy of instruments used to measure climatic events and the actual trend of sea level rise.  Because sea levels change year to year, it’s possible to find periods of time even up to a decade where the sea level seems to be dropping (Bostrom, 2015).  This trend is not as easily found when looking at the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) over the past 150 years.  Over the past 150 years, a clear upwards trend is visible with an increase in slope after 1950.  The other argument that members of the oppositions use to criticize the rise of sea levels is the reliability of sea level rise instruments.  Tide gauges and satellite altimeters are the primary instruments used to measure sea level rise.  Tide gauges have to account for changes in the land due to naturally occurring processes at the local level, throwing a variable into calculations scientists and observers have to work around (Bostrum, 2015).  Scientists are aware of this and compensate for it best they can in their measurements.  Satellite altimeters measure sea level change from orbit down to 1mm/year with incredible accuracy (Bostrum, 2015).  An instrument of this caliber is hard to believe and therefore difficult for some to count on but the fact of the matter is it exists and it’s useful.  These instruments provide nearly the same data and follow the same trend, making it impossible to deny their ability to measure sea level.  After taking a closer look at what the opposition’s main points when it comes to global warming and rising sea levels, it’s easy to see the holes in their argument and more importantly, the sea levels are rising and something needs to be done to address it. 

Before discussing the consequences of rising sea levels, it’s important to understand it’s dynamics.  Sea levels began increasing at a significant rate around the same time as the industrial age, when copious amounts of carbon dioxide were being put into the atmosphere, raising the Earth’s temperature (Waldman, 2017).  This raise in temperature created three factors that contribute to the overall raise in sea level (Oppenheimer, 2015).  The first is thermal expansion, the scientific law of nature that states when water is heated it expands, and the Oceans are no exception.  This factor alone contributes to half of the past century’s rise in sea level (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017). The second is the melting of glaciers and the polar ice caps.  Glaciers and ice caps go through a natural period of melting during the summer and gain back the ice they lost during the winter (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017).  Due to higher average temperatures, glaciers and ice caps have experienced greater-average-summer-melting causing more water than usual to be displaced into the ocean.  The last major factor is ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica (“Sea Level Rise”, 2017).  When ice from these areas melts or breaks off into the ocean, the sea level rises and the average temperature in these areas rises, causing the process to happen more rapidly.  These factors together caused a 15-centimeter rise in mean sea level in the 20th century and at least an 18-centimeter rise is expected between 1990 and 2100 (Dow-Downing, 2011).  Although understanding the processes of rising sea levels is helpful, what makes this problem important is it’s effects, not causes. 

The stability and well being of ecosystems and the environment is one of areas most affected by climate change, but it’s often overlooked because of our tendency to focus on the consequences relating to mankind.  Consistently warmer temperatures will cause “a general shift of ecosystems towards the poles”, and if the projected 18-centimeter rise in sea level occurs in the next century, many coastline ecosystems will be submerged completely (Dow-Downing, 2011).  This constriction inward, away from the ocean, and towards the poles, away from an increasingly hot equator, will cause ecosystems to change tremendously to compensate for the new weather and refugee species.  Both plant and animal species will have to undergo unprecedented rates of migration to escape inundation and harsh climate, leaving those that can’t keep up in deep seas or harsh deserts (Dow-Downing, 2011).  The species that are able to escape will run into another immediate challenge, urban and agricultural development (Dow-Downing, 2011).  If these animal and plant species are able to escape their old homes successfully and dodge human development, they will arrive immediately in unfamiliar land, with unfamiliar predators, and unfamiliar consistencies (Dow-Downing, 2011).  For example in North Carolina, nocturnal ghost crabs roam the beaches by moonlight, disguised from prey because of their white bodies and sly movement.  If ghost crabs were to move inland, they would find that it’s much harder to burrow into dirt than sand, their typical diet is few and far between, and sharing a forest with more nocturnal predators than the beach means less time hunting and more time being hunted.  Ultimately, this change of ecosystem would likely mean the extinction of ghost crabs, or at the very least, death in outstanding numbers.  It’s likely that this genocide would come at the hands of raccoons, foxes, squirrels, or other vermin that we as humans tend to have regular contact with.  A boom in raccoon population may be nothing more than a nuisance to us, but it’s an example of how our actions have unpredictable consequences.  However, when it comes to rising sea levels, we have much more to worry about than trash strewn across the driveway five days a week. 

Since the dawn of time, water has been vital to survival.  The most successful cities in history were constructed around water, or with some sufficient means of providing water to their populations.  The most enduring empires relied on water to explore, profit, and expand.  All throughout history, we have lived along side water, relying on it for life.  It seems as though now it wants to take back what it has given.  The survival of the human race is not jeopardized in the same way some other species is, but with almost half of the human population living less than 60 miles from the coast, the losses could be ruinous (Dow-Downing, 2011).  As the strength of hurricanes increases, the 145 million people living less than one meter above sea level are in grave danger (Dow-Downing, 2011).  These two statistics are consistent with the fact that the majority of our population lives close enough to the coast, or water, to be affected by climate change.  In 2012, Hurricane Sandy obliterated areas of the United States East Coast that hadn’t seen a storm like that in years.  It was the second costliest in USA history prior to 2017, and the deadliest and most destructive of the 2012 season (Zend-Sun-Li, 2017).  It also came with the highest flood levels that only occur once every 1000 years but with the rising sea levels, we can expect to see this level of flooding every 20 years or less by the end of the century (Oppenheimer, 2015).  This year, Hurricane Irma became “the second Category 4 hurricane to strike the U.S. in a single season, the first time in 166 years of weather records” (“Hurricanes Harvey”, 2017).  With threats like this looming, regional and urban planners have to take into account the ability of infrastructure to withstand consistent flooding and intense hurricanes.  Providing infrastructure with the features it needs to withstand these conditions, especially for already existing buildings, is expensive and often low priority.  City and state officials tend to focus on more short-term, pressing problems than long-term environmental issues.  Continuous beating by storms and encroaching sees will soon make us wish we had solved this problem slowly and efficiently, instead of waiting until it was too late and homes and lives disappear.

How many people need to be misplaced or killed before the rising sea level becomes an issue that takes priority?  The answer is more.  Already rising sea levels are pushing people out of their homes, forcing them to become environmental refugees.  Caribbean and South Pacific are two areas most at risk of inundation.  In 1999, “two uninhabited Kiribati Islands disappeared beneath the sea”, and “the remaining 33 islands, home to 103,000 people are likely to suffer the same fate” (Dow-Downing, 2015).  A similar situation forced the 2,000 person native population of the Carteret Islands, in Papua New Guinea to move to a neighboring island when their fruit trees, a primary source of food, were killed by an increasingly saline water supply, their homes were soon thereafter washed away (Dow-Downing, 2015).  The most tragic part about these occurrences is that the natives in islands have almost no contribution global warming and therefore, rising sea levels.  Most of these people will never drive a car, cook with a gas stove, or work in a factory in their entire life, making their carbon footprint one of the smallest in the entire world.  The rest of the world’s inconsiderate contribution of greenhouse gases has taken the livelihoods of these poor people away from them in the most tragic way, a slow submergence into the ocean.  Unless the habitats and mindset of the first world countries changes, the poor lives of those island inhabitants will continue to be disrupted. 

Rising sea levels is a problem will consequences that will increase in frequency and intensity unless something is done to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and slow the rate at which sea levels rise.  Infrastructure will have to be altered to compensate for the damage we have already done to the environment.  The statistics relating to sea level rise are alarming but often seen as long term consequences, when in reality, if the global stance does not change, we will be facing a problem that is too late to fix.  
