Mumbai, Mangalore, Chennai likely to face submergence by 2100: NASA study

New Delhi, Aug 10: A new study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has revealed that several Indian coastal cities including Maharashtra, especially Mumbai, parts of Goa, Karnataka and Kerala will be submerged by the end of the century.

NASA’s Sea Level Change Team has created a sea level projection tool that makes extensive data on the future sea-level rise from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) easily accessible to the public. The data from satellites and ground equipment along with the analysis and simulations determine the sea level and help experts used to make their sea-level forecasts.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was utilised by NASA to analyse the changes in sea levels throughout the world.

The IPCC has published global climate assessments every five to seven years since 1988 focusing on changes in temperature, changes in ice cover, sea levels across the globe, greenhouse gas emissions, among several other topics. The most recent iteration of the IPCC’s work, the 6th Assessment Report from Working Group I, was released on August 9th, 2021.

In its study, NASA said that under the global warming conditions that the Earth is reeling under, sea levels around the world have been rising and are projected to continue rising in the future. The cities and towns that are likely to be affected by the rising sea levels include Mumbai, Bhavnagar, Mangalore, Cochin, Paradip, Khidirpur, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Tuticorin, Kandla, Okha, Mormugao among several others.

According to NASA report, the sea level projection tool should help people at all levels of government in countries around the world to forecast future scenarios and to develop coastal resources accordingly.