Our Drowning Planet

You’ve heard it before: ocean levels are rising. It’s easy to shrug it off and think, “That’s somebody else’s problem; it doesn’t affect me.” But that’s where you’re wrong. We’re all at risk, especially those of us living in Asia – Singapore included.

- Melinda Murphy

Imagine walking along East Coast Park and the beach was no more. It was totally gone and in its place was nothing but seawater. Sound crazy? It’s not.

Global sea levels are now rising far faster than they did just a hundred years ago – a blink of an eye as far the age of the Earth goes. At this rate, the ocean could be a full 1.3 metres higher than today by 2100.

It doesn’t sound like much, though, does it? 1.3 metres. Yet here’s what that amount of extra water could mean in terms of probable events unfolding over the next 80 years:

• As many as 216 million people displaced.

• Seawater moving inland, contaminating aquifers and agricultural soil.

• Fish, bird and plants losing their habitats.

• Floods on a scale that once occurred every 500 years averaging every five years instead.

• Bigger storms with more powerful storm surges.

• Low-lying islands completely submerged.

• Weather patterns becoming more unpredictable.

• Increased shortages of food and water.

It reads like something out of The Book of Revelations. And there’s more. Lots more.

The problem

Professor BENJAMIN HORTON (pictured, far right) is the Chair of the Asian School of Environment, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and Principal Investigator of the Earth Observatory of Singapore. It’s a big job studying a big problem.

“My research concerns sea-level and environmental change. I aim to understand the mechanisms that have determined sea-level changes in the past, and how they will shape such changes in the future. Fundamental to this aim is bridging the gap between short-term instrumental records and long-term geological reconstructions and model predictions.”