Climate change and flooding
The Upshot blog at the New York Times had this interactive map of the flooding risk from climate change. It lets you see the number affected in each country, and also lets you vary the estimates for how much CO2 will be emitted and how sensitive ocean levels are to CO2.
It’s missing something, though: not just New Zealand, but all the Pacific Island countries. We often get maps cut off at about 167 E longitude, and we can just whinge quietly about the New York view of the world
but in this context, where some of these islands will cease to exist if sea levels rise as predicted, leaving them out seems more inappropriate than usual.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
I am unclear if a island sinking underneath the ocean counts as flooding, or if it is a more serious form of natural disaster. After all, it is true that the underwater islands won’t have a problem with periodic floods. :-)
10 years ago
However you count the final result, they’ll have a lot of coastal flooding first.
10 years ago