![]() In the map, the lower elevation areas are shown in blue higher elevation areas are green and brown. Many of the islands lie as much as 15 meters below sea level and would already be underwater without the levees. The Landsat 8 image and digital elevation model above highlights the vast network of levees that protect islands within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. To counter modern sea level rise, the Dutch are now making extensive upgrades to Afsluitdijk. ![]() Without Afsluitdijk and the rest of the dams and dykes of the Zuiderzee Works, an inland sea would flood large patches of land around and within Lake Ijssel. ![]() The Landsat 8 image at the top of the page shows the Afsluitdijk,Ī 32-kilometer (20-mile) dam that separates a shallow inlet of the North Sea (the Wadden Sea) from freshwater Lake Ijssel in the Netherlands. The value of such systems is apparent in some places that already sit precariously near or below sea level for example, parts of the The Netherlands and the Central Valley in California. Infrastructure-levees, floods walls, dykes, and the like-offers some hope of holding water back and postponing the worst impacts. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, low-lying areas such as river deltas, barrier islands, and island atolls will face the most immediate threats-especially in poorer countries and rural areas that lack the resources to construct coastal defenses. Nearly every coast on Earth will be affected by sea level rise, but the impacts will not be distributed evenly. While definitive answers about local sea levels remain a challenge, decades of research have made the global picture much clearer. Through a series of individual research projects and collective consultation, scientists are deciphering clues about past sea level rise, gathering observations of present conditions from satellites, ships, and airplanes, and developing computer models to anticipate possible futures. These are the types of questions that members of NASA’s sea level rise team work on. Data collected by satellite altimeters over the past three decades show that global sea level has risen by an average of 3.4 millimeters per year and the rate is accelerating.Īs global warming changes our planet, which coastlines are most and least vulnerable to sea level rise? Could new inland seas and waterways develop as they did thousands of years ago? Could Lake Champlain ever reconnect to the ocean and become the Champlain Sea again? Ten thousand years later, the atmosphere and oceans are warming rapidly and land ice at all latitudes is melting. Whales swam in what is now central Vermont. Editor’s Note: Be sure to read the preceding parts of the series for more background on the Charlotte Whale and sea level rise projections.Īs ice sheets melted at the end of the last Ice Age, sea levels rose and an inland sea formed in New England and southeastern Canada.
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