Global Costs of Sea Flooding
The Art
The Science
What’s Alarming
These figures reflect global annual costs from sea flooding (in million US$ per year - figure (a)* and as a percentage of Global GDP – figure (b)) assuming four scenarios of additional mitigation/adaptation affecting temperature rise. The first two colors, 1.5°C (red), and 2°C (green), represent global costs of sea flooding if we adopt the most aggressive mitigation efforts. The other two lines illustrate “RCP” models (Representative Concentration Pathways) reflecting the projected results of less aggressive action (blue) or the continuation of current dangerous trends (purple). “If warming is not kept to 2°C, but follows a high emissions scenario [RCP 8.5], global annual flood costs without additional adaptation could increase to US$14 trillion per year and US$27 trillion per year for global sea level rise of 86cm (median) and 180cm (95thpercentile), reaching 2.8% of global GDP in 2100.”
Source: S. Jevrejeva et al2018 Environ. Res. Lett. 18 074014
These figures do not include additional costs from flooding of interior lakes and rivers, loss of human life and other potentially devastating impacts.
*The art is based on Figure (a) only.
