An interactive map that looks into the future has predicted big swathes of the UK, including parts of London, will soon be under water unless significant effort are made to try and stop climate change
Stretches of London along the Thames will be under threat
Conversation around climate change has drastically shifted over the years, as its devastating impacts start to show.
Once dismissed as eco-warrior scaremongering, more and more Brits are started to get concerned about the state of the planet. In fact, figures from the Office for National Statistics show a staggering 74 per cent of adults in Great Britain aged 16 or over are worried about the current climate crisis.
A new interactive map that shows what the country could look like in 2050 has ramped up the fear. Created by climate Central, the map predicts huge parts of the country will be totally underwater in less than 30 years time, unless there is significant action to combat global warming.
Large parts of the UK will be underwater by 2050
Areas shaded red on the map are those lower than predicted local sea water and coastal flood protections. In a scenario in which ‘moderate’ reductions are made to the amount of human made pollution, and in which a ‘medium’ amount of luck keeps weather events on our side, great swathes of the country will be enveloped.
The worst affected parts of the UK are the east and north-east of England. A huge area of land stretching from above Cambridge all the way up the coast to Hull will be underwater.
Stretches of London along the Thames will be under threat
Across the country Liverpool, Southport, Blackpool and Morcambe will also be swamped. In the south-west the River Severn will play havoc, with stretches on either side of the estuary – from Taunton up to Tekesbury and then back down to Cardiff on the northern bank – at risk of being lost to the waves.
London also looks to be in trouble. A band roughly two miles thick along The Thames will be flooded. Mercifully, Scotland and Northern Ireland look to be less seriously affected, with only small areas along rivers and in the Hebrides underwater.
Hull will be badly affected by the rising tides
The conclusion that should be drawn from viewing the map is clear: if we don’t stop releasing green house gases into the air, large parts of Britain will be underwater. The data was put together in a 2020 October report entitled ‘Flooded Future: Global vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood’.
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It revealed coastal elevation levels across wide areas are actually significantly lower than previously thought. The findings of the study by Dr Scott Kulp and Dr Benjamin Strauss, senior computational scientist and chief scientist respectively at US-based climate change research group Climate Central, were published in a peer-reviewed paper in the scientific journal ‘Nature Communications’.
Settlements along the Mersey will be affected
They said in the report: “As humanity pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the planet warms. And as it does so, ice sheets and glaciers melt and warming sea water expands, increasing the volume of the world’s oceans. The consequences range from near-term increases in coastal flooding that can damage infrastructure and crops to the permanent displacement of coastal communities.”
There is still a huge amount to play for however. By current projections, sea levels could rise between 2ft and 7ft by the end of the century. If the world moves to drastically cut the amount of pollutants dumped into the atmosphere that figure could be on the lower end of the scale.
What do you think of the map? Let us know in the comments section below
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