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CrowdScience

Where do we go when the seas rise?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8985 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After learning how long it will take the Earth's ice sheets to melt in the previous episode, we continue our journey in Greenland. As world leaders gather in Egypt for the annual UN climate conference, listener Johan isn't too optimistic about governments' ability to curb greenhouse gas emissions and get a handle on climate change. So from his coastal perch in Denmark, he has asked where we should live when the poles have melted away and coastlines creep inland.

Along with the help of BBC correspondents around the world, Marnie Chesterton scours the globe for the best option for listener Johan's new home.

BBC Mundo reporter Rafael Rojas takes us to a manmade island off Colombia's Caribbean coast to see how we might be able to live with the seas. Meanwhile, reporter Furkan Khan takes us into the high, cold desert region of Ladakh to see if heading for the hills might be the answer.

As Marnie searches for a climate-proof destination, she speaks to conservation biogeographer Matt Fitzpatrick, from the Appalachian Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He's made a map that shows what towns and cities will feel like in 60 years and where you should visit in order to get a preview of your home's future climate. But Matt also tells us that we might not be the only ones on the move.

And as climate scientist Ruth Mottram from the Danish Meteorological Institute tells us, waters are not going to rise evenly around the world. So can Marnie find a place to go, away from the expanding seas?

Additional contributors: Alexander Atencio, environmental sustainability teacher, Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia Sebastian Martinez, local leader, Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia Professor Mohammad Din, Ladakh Environment and Health Organisation Ellen and Carl Fiederickson, teacher and sheep farmers, Qassiarsuk, Greenland

Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Sam Baker

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of

0:07.0

Happiness Podcast.

0:08.0

For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want

0:14.4

to share that science with you.

0:16.1

And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.

0:19.4

I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that

0:25.4

calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. We are in a boat in a fjord surrounded, absolutely surrounded by icebergs and you probably hear them these little icebergs some not so little

0:51.8

and I can see straight ahead of me where they've all come off.

0:55.0

This ice sheet, the Greenland ice sheet, one edge of which

1:01.0

has spilled out into this fjord, a cliff wall of ice and chunks of that are clearly coming

1:10.6

off, carving off, they say, into this water.

1:15.0

I'm Marnie Chesterton and you're listening to the second part of our crowd science special from Greenland

1:27.0

which has the dubious honour of being ground zero for the world's melting ice and sea level rise. In the last show we

1:34.8

answered the question how long before all the ice melts and we found some pretty

1:39.2

shocking stuff. We think the feature of the green light sheet is that it's going to darken over bigger areas.

1:46.0

So there are going to be more melting ice surfaces in the future.

1:51.0

We found that no matter what future trajectory there is high or low

1:56.2

emission scenario Greenland will deliver at least 27 centimeters of sea level rise, that sea level commitment is only going to grow.

2:06.5

And as the water gets warmer, it expands and that was actually our primary contributor to sea level rise so far.

2:13.0

That process will also continue over many centuries

2:16.0

because it takes a long time for the heat in the atmosphere

2:19.0

to work its way down into the deep parts of the ocean which are cooler.

...

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