Without serious efforts to mitigate carbon emissions, the oceans could rise an average of 1.1 meters by 2100, which would completely reshape coastlines, plunge major cities underwater, and displace millions | Genevieve French / Greenpeace

A new IPCC report on our oceans finds a troubling brew of higher temperatures, melting ice, and more violent storms Today?s release of the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), focused on our seas and frozen lands, underscores the accelerating risks to our planet, especially to coastal cities. Scientists found that low-lying coastal zones, home to 680 million people, or 10 percent of the world?s 2010 population, are under extreme risk of a combination of increased sea level rise, more extreme weather, and more frequent and strong storms. Without serious efforts to mitigate carbon emissions, the oceans could rise an average of 1.1 meters by 2100, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, which would completely reshape coastlines, plunge major cities underwater, and displace millions. And that?s what scientists can predict; according to Regine Hock of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, a coauthor of the report and a glacier expert, ?the sea level rise can go way beyond [that] because of this potential instability of the West Antarctic ice sheet.?
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, chair of C40, an alliance of international cities fighting climate change, said the report make...