Will Mumbai be three feet under by 2100?

On August 9 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCCmdashthe United Nations UN body for assessing the science related to climate changemdashreleased its 6th Assessment ReportMaking alarming conclusions it provides new estimates of the chances of crossing the global warming level of 15 degrees Celsius in the coming decades The report finds that unless there are immediate rapid and largescale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions limiting warming close to 15 to 2 degrees Celsius will be beyond reachBased on the IPCCrsquos report scientists working at the USbased space agency NASA have analysed changes in sea levels across the globe by creating a sealevel projection tool that makes data on future sea level rise accessible to the public Shockingly NASA has identified 12 coastal cities in Indiamdashincluding Mumbaimdashthat are likely to find themselves submerged under three feet of water by the turn of this centuryOther Indian cities located along the coast that could bear the similar brunt of climate change are Kochi Vishakhapatnam and Chennai The report states that coastal areas across the globe will see a continued rise in sea levels throughout the 21st century thus contributing to frequent and severe flooding in lowlying areas accompanied by coastal erosion This indicates that extreme sea level eventsmdashwhich previously occurred approximately once every 100 yearsmdashcould now take place almost on a yearly basis by the end of this centuryMumbai witnessed heavy rains last month as well In this photo taken on July 21 2021 waterlogging can be seen at KurlaBandra Freeway Road PicSameer MarkandeSpeaking with midday Krishna Achuta Rao who is one of the contributing authors in the IPCC report said ldquoOne of the key findings is that the Indian Ocean is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the globe Waters are warming much faster within our neighbourhoodrdquo He also added ldquoAnother implication is that as the waters get warmer it water creates conditions for enabling tropical cyclonesEssentially this means that more fuel becomes available for these tropical cyclones to form in terms of the heat of the water which leads to the formation of stronger tropical cyclones Now when you have a combination of higher sea levels and stronger cyclones it is going to end up affecting coastlines and coastal cities much more Coastal erosion is going to become a problem infrastructure and human lives along the coast as well as offshore like what we saw during the recent Maharashtra floods will be in dangerrdquoHe further pointed out that coastal areas would end up receiving more intense rainfall ldquoTropical cyclones will be dumping more rain and even without that coastal areas will have more rainfallmdashespecially along the west of India where there is heavy rainfall every year during monsoon This is because as the climate becomes warmer the air ends up holding more water and when these waterladen winds come and hit the Western Ghats they end up with a heavier rainfall spellrdquoSpeaking about the possibility of 12 Indian cities being submerged under water Rao said that ldquothis is within the realm of possibilityrdquo Certain cities he says could experience a higher rise since water levels donrsquot increase uniformly ldquoIf there is wind in a certain direction then there is water that tends to pile up in that direction and these factors start affecting the sea level You can also have local variations in the water temperature as well as local changes in its salinity that could influence how high the water level isrdquoHowever Rao says that the chances of Mumbai and the other 11 Indian cities located along the coast being submerged under water by 2100 is not as much a ldquopredictionrdquo as it is a ldquoscenariordquo modelled on what happens at different levels of CO2 ldquoBeing submerged a metre under water is a lsquohighemissionrsquo scenario which we are likely to end up at if we donrsquot do anything to control our emission and burning of fossil fuelsrdquo he saidWhen asked if we could do anything to reverse or even limit this change in expected sea level rise across the world he said ldquoWe need to stop emitting and burning fossil fuels This cannot happen overnight which is why we need to ramp it down and quickly get the levels as close to zero as possible By doing so this scenario of Mumbai and other Indian coastal cities finding themselves submerged under water by the end of the century will be will be pushed to say 300 years from nowrdquoHe concluded ldquoWe are already feeling the effects of climate change throughout the world in the form of extreme weather events It is there for us to see in the headlines on almost a daily basis This isonly going to get worse as we emit more and more greenhouse gasesrdquo