With all the floods in NSW I’ve been trying to locate a document I read several years ago about the frequency of natural disasters and climate change. I just found it! it’s the Climate Change Risks to Australia’s Coast report from 2009 by Department of Climate Change.
It says that disasters that happened every 1 in 10 years in the old normal, could happen every 1 in 10 days by 2100. Sea Level Rise is forecast to be 79cm by 2100 and will cause changes to weather events. Disasters that happened only every 1 in 100 years in the old normal, could happen several times in a single year by 2100.
Sea Level Rise since 1993 has been about 9cm. Over the last 100 years Sea Level Rise has been about 20cm.
Sea Level Rise takes a long time, due to the slow processes involved.
A good emissions reduction plan could see Sea Level Rise stabilise at just under a metre by 2300.
The worst outcome if we don’t reduce greenhouse emissions soon, would be around 4 to 5 metres of Sea Level Rise by 2300.
From a NASA document, this is what kind of possible Sea Level Rise scenarios we are looking at into the future:
Zoe Emily Mithen 