Coastal regions would experience an underestimation of the sea level rise projections released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2021. This is the conclusion of the study "Sea level rise projections up to 2150 in the Northern Mediterranean coasts," which was recently published in the international journal Environmental Research Letters by a team of researchers from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Italy) and the Radboud Radio Lab of the Department of Astrophysics at the University of Radboud (Netherlands). According to analyses, sea levels in some Mediterranean areas are rising nearly three times quicker than in stable places. The Mediterranean, in fact, is characterized by a high degree of variety in the vertical movements of the coasts, which vary by area due to tectonic, volcanic, and human activities. The research employed data from several satellite geodetic stations, allowing the vertical displacement velocity of the ground to be calculated with millimeter precision. The conclusion is that about 38,500 km2 of Mediterranean coastline will soon be more vulnerable to maritime flooding, with increased consequences for the ecosystem, human activities, and infrastructure.
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