View the video with highlights from Stefan Rahmstorf’s presentation.
The world’s sea levels will rise “several metres” in the coming centuries, if greenhouse gas emissions are not strongly reduced, said the leading climate researcher Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research at the climate seminar held at COWI on 11 May 2009.
”We must never forget that we will be causing changes in the next 50 years or so which will continue to unfold for many centuries to come and which will lead to many metres of sea level in the longer run,” Professor Stefan Rahmstorf told those in attendance, who included guests from Danish ministries and municipalities, in addition to COWI’s consultants who work with climate protection and mitigation on a daily basis.
Race against the clock
During the seminar, Rahmstorf, who contributed to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, admitted he was “pessimistic” that politicians would be able to forge an effective treaty at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen this December that could limit temperature increases to two degrees Celsius - a goal the EU advocates and which some 100 countries support.
Even if such a treaty were ratified such temperature increases would lead to sea level increases over a metre.
”I would be very hopeful in the long run that people recognise this is a serious problem and that we can solve it,” Rahmstorf said. ”The reason why I’m not hopeful, is that we don’t have a long run. We’re really running out of time. It’s a race against the clock basically.”
Rising pessimism
Using his most recently published scientific data for temperature and sea level rises, the German professor demonstrated how climate changes will lead to sea level increases of 50 to 140 cm in the year 2100 – far more than the increases predicted in the IPCC report.
The effects will be felt worldwide, and the oceans will continue to rise even after temperatures are stabilised, said Rahmstorf.
“We are about to close the window in which we can still limit the global temperature increases to two degrees,” said Rahmstorf. ”That’s why I’m pessimistic. Politicians learn, and society can cope with new problems - but this is happening too fast.”
View the video with highlights from Stefan Rahmstorf’s presentation.
By staff writers
Published: 12.05.2009
