The worst flooding in the Venice Lagoon over the past 40 years is associated with global warming.
Storm winds struck Venice, which led to a sharp rise in the water level in the city. As of the evening of October 29, three-quarters, or about 75 percent of the historical part of the most popular Italian city among tourists, was under water.
Flooding is a frequent occurrence for Venice, permeated by hundreds of canals, but this time it turned out to be the strongest in half a century.
Meanwhile, scientists warn that Venice will be one of the first cities to go completely under water due to global warming. Correspondent.net tells the details.
Flooded 75 percent of Venice
Due to heavy rains and storm wind, the water level rose by 1.56 meters - the highest figure since December 1979. Record flood is considered to have occurred in the city in November 1966. Then the water rose to 1.94 metersBecause of what is happening, law enforcement agencies closed the central square of St. Mark for visitors. Due to weather conditions, 75 percent or three-quarters of the city’s territory was under water.
Floods in Venice, the so-called Acqua Alta (high water), occur regularly, but the water level is above the 1.1 meter mark. At the same time about 12 percent of the historical part of the city is flooded. This happens several times a year.The cause of this weather phenomenon, which is usually observed from the beginning of November to the end of January, is the wind surge of water. The wind of the sirocco drives the water from the Adriatic Sea to the Venetian lagoon, from where it falls into the canals and spreads through the streets and squares of the ancient city.
Bad weather is also raging in other parts of Italy - several hundred thousand households were left without electricity. In Rome, classes in schools were canceled, in Genoa there were interruptions in the movement of trains.Venice will disappear by 2100
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city was founded in the ninth century. And since then, he gradually goes under water.
In the 20th century, this process accelerated markedly - Venice plunged into the lagoon by five millimeters per year due to the increasing pressure of buildings and industrial water intake from artesian wells.
Recently, the number of severe flooding in Venice has increased, one of the reasons for this is global climate change.
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According to the calculations of scientists, Venice may become uninhabitable in 2028, and by 2100 it would be completely sunk along with the unique palazzo and the most beautiful churches.
In mid-October, scientists from the University of Kiel in Germany published a study in Nature, which says that about 50 famous historical sites of the Mediterranean will be flooded by the next century.
The list of places threatened with extinction, except Venice, included the medieval center of Rhodes, the historical center of Pisa, Medina of Tunisia, Dubrovnik, Paphos, Byblos, the old town of Corfu, Syracuse, Ravenna and many other UNESCO World Heritage sites in the coastal zone.Growing sea levels due to the melting of glaciers by the year 2100 will lead to flooding, floods and erosion of coastal areas, explains Lena Reiman, who led a team of researchers at the University of Kila.
Dr. Reiman notes that the study should help the governments of the Mediterranean countries to develop strategies for the protection of unique monuments and the possible movement of them.
Rising sea levels are due to the thermal expansion of ocean water, as well as the melting of polar ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland and mountain glaciers.
How has planet Earth changed and what to expect
Over the 20th century, the average sea level rose by 17 cm and continues to grow. The growth rate of the sea level increases annually by an average of 0.084 millimeters per year.Global warming
Due to global warming, the area of almost all the glaciers of the world is shrinking, and some of them have completely disappeared. In the NASA on the eve of the declared almost complete disappearance of the long-term Arctic ice cover.
One third of the entire coast in the world is located in the permafrost zone. Recent studies have shown that the rate of melting of Antarctic ice has accelerated three times in the last five years.
Scientists note that if measures are not taken in the next decade, the melted ice may add more than 25 centimeters to the total increase in sea level in the world by 2070. Thus, in general, sea levels could rise by 3.5 meters.
The ice sheet of Antarctica has a huge size. The white continent is covered with a layer of ice up to four kilometers thick. Antarctica is called the planet freezer - it stores 90 percent of all fresh water on Earth.
The latest data from the IMBIE project (The ice sheet mass balance inter-comparison exercise), published in the journal Nature, showed that since 1992, Antarctica has lost almost three trillion tons of ice.
Aggregate data on 24 parameters indicate that the rate of ice mass reduction in Antarctica has tripled since 2012. If until 2012, 76 billion tons of ices of Antarctica melted annually, then in recent years this figure has increased to 219 billion.
A report prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which says that the problem of global climate change can no longer be put off until later, was published this month, scientists warn.
We need to act right now - otherwise irreparable damage to the ecosystems of the planet may already be caused by the year 2030, that is, after 12 years.
Scientific consensus leaves no doubt: global climate change is a reality, and it is caused primarily by human actions and greenhouse gas emissions.
However, humanity still has a chance to keep the temperature increase at an acceptable level. But to do this, it is not enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It must be reduced to zero no later than the middle of the 21st century.
This means a complete rejection of the burning of coal, oil and gas. That is, the transfer of the entire global economy to fundamentally new rails. In addition, the entire planet will need to radically revise the principles of land use, agriculture, urban planning and industry as a whole.