Environment
The Storm of the Century Could Soon Happen Every Year
A UN report warns extreme weather events that historically happened about once in 100 years could hit coastal cities yearly by 2050. Cities need to prepare now.
In a rapidly warming world, extreme storms that typically occur once per century could hit the world’s coastal cities at least once per year by 2050. By that time, more than 1 billion people are projected to live in the low-lying areas that will be in the path of those storms.
That’s just one of the alarming findings in a special report on the world’s oceans and frozen areas, released Wednesday by climate scientists at the United Nations. Citing over 7,000 publications, more than 100 scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in the report that the global sea level is rising more rapidly than expected.