Horrifying simulations of potential damage caused by global warming

Researches from a non-profit organisation Climate Change have compared how high water levels could rise due to global warming. They concluded that if global temperature rises by 4 degrees Celsius, the waters could rise by 8.9 metres within 200-2000 years. In case of this scenario, some 50 cities across the globe could disappear.

By comparison - if emission of harmful gases is curbed and the average temperature increases by 1.5 degrees Celsius, the water levels would go up "only" by 2.9 metres. Therefore, the sooner action preventing climate change is taken, the higher the chances of many cities' survival.

Being aware the research alone could have been not enough eye-opening for some, the experts illustrated their analyses with images from Google Earth. By combining the images with research results, they produced visualisations of potential future water levels in more than 200 locations across the globe. The collection titled "Picturing Our Future" also includes video simulations and photorealistic renderings of water levels that could soon become reality.

The research also includes situtation in Poland. The visualisations show that if the global warming dynamic continues at the current level of 3 degrees Celsius, landmarks such as the Basilica of St. Mary and Długa Street in Gdańsk, and downtown Gdynia will be flooded.

The organisation also created an interactive map of potential current and future coastlines, in order to show how vast lands we could lose depending on the level of the warming caused by humans.

The materials have been published ahead of the upcoming United Nations conference on climate change. The meeting, which is to be attended by world leaders, will take place in early November.