Twice as Much Land in Developing Nations Will be Swamped by Rising Seas than Previously Projected, New Research Shows. More accurate mapping of terrain in coastal regions will allow countries to better assess flood risk. Rising seas will swamp farmlands, pollute water supplies and displace millions of people much sooner than expected, scientists said last week, as they released new research that accurately calculates the vulnerability of coastal areas, especially in developing countries that have not had access to expensive coastal mapping technologies. Sea level rise keeps speeding up, and “many coastal areas are lower than scientists thought they were,” said Ronald Vernimmer, lead author of the new study published last week in Earth’s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.                                                                Up until a few years ago, most estimates of how fast rising seas will inundate shorelines were based on radar measurements that can’t distinguish between tops of plants and buildings and the actual elevation of the ground beneath them, “and therefore overestimate surface elevation,” said Vernimmen, who works with the Dutch research firm Data for Sustainability. The study he led analyzed global data from NASA’s ICESat-2 satellite, which uses light detection and ranging (lidar) to get more accurate measurements. A lidar instrument combines information from laser pulses, a scanner and a specialized GPS receiver to generate detailed three-dimensional information of features on the surface of the Earth. The new study shows that every increment of sea level rise will cover more than twice as much land as older models predicted, and marks another advance in providing more accurate models of rising seas said Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who was not involved in the study. “It is no surprise that, particularly for moderate sea-level rise, the improved elevation data are bad news,” he said. “More flooding can be expected for a given rise of 1 meter or 2 meters, and more people live in areas vulnerable to rising seas than was estimated with the old elevation models.”                                                                                                    The findings of the study won’t improve the accuracy of sea level rise estimates for the United States, which already uses lidar readings from aerial missions that are even more accurate than the satellite data, said William Sweet, a sea rise expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But, he said, the paper “is an important advance for many countries that are lacking accurate coastal elevation information to assess their changing flood risk as sea levels rise.” For example, the new data suggest that seas 6.6 feet higher would put most of Bangkok and its 10 million residents below sea level, while previous projections showed that Bangkok would still be mostly above sea level with water that much higher. Globally, Vernimmen and his co-author Aljosja Hooijer estimated that 240 million more people than previously projected would be living below sea level with oceans that much higher. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07022023/sea-leve-rise-developing-nations/

Guest post: How the South Atlantic is overcoming its history as an under-researched ocean. The South Atlantic Ocean plays a crucial role in the global climate, but has received only a fraction of the scientific attention of its northern counterpart. For example, the South Atlantic Ocean is a key part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – a major current system in the world’s oceans that plays a crucial role in regulating global climate. The South Atlantic also directly affects the climate of many South American and African countries and can drive extreme events – such as heatwaves, droughts and floods – that can lead to water and food insecurity for millions of people. Yet, the South Atlantic is under-researched when compared to the North Atlantic in large part because global powers have historically considered it less geopolitically and economically important. Moreover, the ocean is flanked by low-to-middle income countries that still struggle to fund the high costs of oceanographic research. To raise awareness and encourage more research about the South Atlantic, the journal Communications Earth & Environment has prepared a special collection on “Ocean Science in the South Atlantic”.This special issue features six papers- among these is a review of the role of the South Atlantic in the AMOC, a perspective on how decreasing the disparity between the global south and north can help to build a unified approach to assess ocean ecosystem health in the Atlantic, and a comment piece on how women have taken a greater role in oceanographic campaigns in the South Atlantic – a field traditionally dominated by men – leading to a more inclusive science. The ‘Improper Atlantic’......The history of the South Atlantic is one of sporadic colonisation and economic exploitation......read more        https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-the-south-atlantic-is-overcoming-its-history-as-an-under-researched-ocean/?utm_source=cbnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2023-01-22&utm_campaign=This+week+State+of+2022+s+climate+Halting+nature+loss+Skidmore+review+CDR+assessed+South+Atlantic+research

Red List Calls Out 'Perfect Storm of Unsustainable Human Activity Decimating Marine Life' "As the world looks to the ongoing U.N. Biodiversity Conference to set the course for nature recovery, we simply cannot afford to fail," said the head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. During the United Nations biodiversity summit in Montreal, an international conversation group on Friday highlighted how humanity is dangerously failing marine life with illegal and unsustainable fishing, pollution from agricultural and industrial runoff, and activities that drive up global temperatures. "If we are to secure a new future for the world's oceans and the essential biodiversity they harbor, we must act now." The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species now features 150,388 species, 42,108 of which face possible extinction. Of the 17,903 marine animals and plants on the list, more than 1,550 are at risk. "Today's IUCN Red List update reveals a perfect storm of unsustainable human activity decimating marine life around the globe. As the world looks to the ongoing U.N. Biodiversity Conference to set the course for nature recovery, we simply cannot afford to fail," Bruno Oberle, the group's director general, warned Friday. "We urgently need to address the linked climate and biodiversity crises, with profound changes to our economic systems, or we risk losing the crucial benefits the oceans provide us with."The primary aim of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)—which is hosted by China but kicked off earlier in Canada this week due to Covid-19 restrictions—is the development of post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF). A top priority for many parties to the treaty—along with the United States, which has failed to ratify the CBD over the past three decades but is still participating in the summit—is to protect 30% of lands and waters by 2030. However, as activists and Indigenous leaders from around the world have noted, there are serious human rights concerns regarding implementation of the 30x30 goal.  COP15 comes after the fifth round of discussions about establishing a U.N. treaty for the high seas, or the two-thirds of oceans outside territorial waters. Those August talks failed to produce an agreement—which, as Laura Meller of Greenpeace's Protect the Oceans campaign warned at the time, "jeopardizes the livelihoods and food security of billions of people around the world." "While progress has been made, particularly on ocean sanctuaries, members of the High Ambition Coalition and countries like the USA have moved too slowly to find compromises, despite their commitments," Meller continued. "Time has run out. Further delay means ocean destruction. We are sad and disappointed. While countries continue to talk, the oceans and all those who rely on them will suffer."          https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/12/10/red-list-calls-out-perfect-storm-unsustainable-human-activity-decimating-marine-life?utm_source=weekly_newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=weekly_newsletter

UN Ocean Treaty Talks on Verge of Collapse Due to Rich Nations' Greed, Greenpeace Warns. "We are sad and angry," said one campaigner. "Billions of people rely on healthy oceans, and world leaders have failed all of them." A fledgling international effort to protect the world's oceans from further damage is "on the brink of failure," and the governments of wealthy countries are primarily to blame, Greenpeace International warned Thursday. Diplomats gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York City are nearing the end of the fifth and final round of negotiations on a much-needed pact to protect biodiversity in the "high seas"—a global commons comprising the two-thirds of the ocean that lie outside the jurisdiction of any single country and where legally binding regulations are virtually nonexistent.. Conservationists have long hoped that the ongoing summit—described by some as the "last chance" to forge a robust global ocean treaty—would lead to the establishment of "Marine Protected Areas" and rules mandating environmental assessments prior to deep-sea mining and other industrial activities. But a handful of mostly rich countries—including the United States, Canada, and members of the so-called High Ambition Coalition on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction—have derailed progress made on the text by prioritizing "hypothetical future profits" that could be derived from extracting marine genetic resources over protecting aquatic species, according to Greenpeace. The oceans sustain all life on Earth, but the greed of a few countries means this round of talks for a U.N. ocean treaty are now set to fail," Laura Meller of Greenpeace's Protect the Oceans campaign said Thursday in a statement. "The High Ambition Coalition has utterly failed. They should be the No Ambition Coalition." Members of the coalition have "obsessed over their hypothetical future profits, undermining all the other progress made at these talks," said Meller. "Unless ministers urgently pick up the phone today to their counterparts and hammer out a deal, this treaty process will fail." The health of the world's oceans, which cover roughly 70% of the Earth and are indispensible. The high ambition coalition pledged earlier this year to finalize a treaty in 2022 that would protect 30% of the world's oceans by 2030, but the proposed text is "lowering its ambition by the minute," said Greenpeace.....read more  90% of Marine Species Face Extinction Under Emissions Status Quo: Study                   https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/08/25/un-ocean-treaty-talks-verge-collapse-due-rich-nations-greed-greenpeace-warns?utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter