America's national icons underwater: Experts to reveal the full extent of damage climate change could to do everything from Jamestown to the Statue of Liberty

Images include shots of Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C, Ocean Drive in Miami and the Statue of Liberty
The photographs were developed by Pittsburgh-based digital artist Nickolay Lamm, based on real climate data
Over course of the 20th century, sea levels across the globe rose faster than in any of the previous 29 centuries


By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM


PUBLISHED: 18:33 GMT, 11 April 2016 | UPDATED: 01:03 GMT, 12 April 2016With scientists forecasting sea levels to rise by anywhere from several inches to several feet by 2100, historic structures and coastal heritage sites around the world are under threat.


Some sites and artifacts could become submerged - with everything from Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, to much of the museum beneath the Statue of Liberty at threat.


Scientists, historic preservationists, architects and public officials are meeting this week in Newport, Rhode Island - one of the threatened areas - to discuss the problem, how to adapt to rising seas and preserve historic structures.


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The Statue of Liberty in New York is 151ft from the base to the torch. A large area of its base could be under water if global warming continues at the current rate, according to researchers. The left image shows what the Statue looks like today and the right, if it became submerged by 25ft of water as a result of rising sea levels


'Any coastal town that has significant historic properties is going to be facing the challenge of protecting those properties from increased water and storm activity,' said Margot Nishimura, of the Newport Restoration Foundation, the nonprofit group hosting the conference.



Federal authorities have encouraged people to elevate structures in low-lying areas, but that poses challenges in dense neighborhoods of centuries-old homes built around central brick chimneys, Nishimura said, especially ones where preservationists are trying to keep the character intact.



Many of the most threatened sites in North America lie along the East Coast between Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and southern Maine, where the rate of sea level rise is among the fastest in the world, said Adam Markham, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a speaker at the conference.


'We're actually not going to be able to save everything,' he said.





BOSTON


Much of historic Boston is along the water and is at risk due to sea level rise, including Faneuil Hall, the market building known as the 'Cradle of Liberty,' and parts of the Freedom Trail, a walking trail that links historic sites around the city.


Boston has seen a growing number of flooding events in recent years, up from two annually in the 1970s to an average of 11 annually between 2009 and 2013, according to a 2014 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists.


If sea levels rise by 5 inches, the group reported, the number of floods is projected to grow to 31 annually.


If seas rise by 11 inches, the number of flooding events is projected to rise to 72 per year.







In this Feb. 22, 2007 file photo, Faneuil Hall, right, one of the sites on Boston's Freedom Trail, sits among buildings on an evening in downtown in Boston. With scientists forecasting sea levels to rise by anywhere from several inches to several feet by 2100, historic structures and coastal heritage sites around the world are under threat. A multidisciplinary conference is scheduled to convene in Newport, R.I., this week to discuss preserving those structures and neighborhoods that could be threatened by rising seas.





Situated in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are some of New York's most important tourist attractions.


In 2012, Superstorm Sandy submerged most of the low-elevation Liberty and Ellis islands. After the storm, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France in 1886, was closed for eight months. Ellis Island, the entry point for about 12 million immigrants to the United States from 1892 to 1954, remained closed for nearly a year.


A report by the National Park Service looked at how several parks would be threatened by 1 meter, or around 3 feet, of sea level rise. It found $1.51 billion worth of assets at the Statue of Liberty National Monument were highly exposed to sea level rise.


NEWPORT


The Point neighborhood in the Rhode Island resort town has one of the highest concentrations of Colonial houses in the United States, and it sits 4 feet above mean sea level.


Tidal flooding is already occurring in the neighborhood, and that is expected to increase as sea levels rise, Nishimura said.


The smell of sea water already permeates the basement of some homes.






In this October 2012 photo, Jim Davis kayaks through waters flooding Bowen's Wharf after Superstorm Sandy in historic Newport, R.I. With scientists forecasting sea levels to rise by anywhere from several inches to several feet by 2100, historic structures and coastal heritage sites around the world are under threat. A multidisciplinary conference is scheduled to convene in Newport this week to discuss preserving those structures and neighborhoods that could be threatened by rising seas.





Other areas include Maryland's capital, on Chesapeake Bay, boasts the nation's largest concentration of 18th-century brick buildings. The city briefly served as the nation's capital in the post-Revolutionary War period, and the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the war, was ratified there. The city is also home to the U.S. Naval Academy.


The city already sees tidal flooding dozens of times a year, and scientists have predicted number could rise to hundreds annually in the next 30 years.


Jamestown could also be badly hit.





Established in 1607, it is the first permanent English colony in North America. It sits along the tidal James River in Virginia, and most of the settlement is less than 3 feet above sea level.


A large part of the settlement has already eroded because of wave action, Markham said. Storms have also damaged the site, including Hurricane Isabel in 2003, which flooded nearly 1 million artifacts.


A rising water table at the site also poses a threat to archaeological remains, Markham said.


He called the loss of archaeological artifacts 'an urgent problem' along the U.S. coastline.





Reports by the National Park Service and others have found that rising sea level rises threaten archaeological sites at various historic places in Hawaii.


Those include ancient fish ponds at Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site and a 'Great Wall' at a sacred site in Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park.


It is considered the best-preserved such wall in Hawaii.





Dozens of UNESCO World Heritage Sites are under threat from sea level rise, according to a 2014 report by climate scientists Ben Marzeion, of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, and Anders Levermann, of the Potsdam Institute in Germany.


Among those are: the Tower of London; Robben Island in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years; Venice, Italy, and its lagoon; Mont-Saint-Michel, home to an abbey built atop a rocky islet in France; the Kasbah of Algiers, Algeria; the historic district of Old Quebec, Canada; Old Havana in Cuba; and archaeological areas of Pompeii, Italy, and Carthage in Tunisia.


The authors wrote that their findings indicate that 'fundamental decisions with regard to mankind's cultural heritage are required.'


Earlier this year, a series of images showing what would happen if major US landmarks were flooded by rising tides has provided a glimpse of what could be our future.


In the shocking pictures the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C is surrounded by water, Ocean Drive in Miami looks like it would only be navigable by boat and Crissy Field in San Francisco is mostly under water.











The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. as it is today is shown on the left, and the monument as it could be in a few centuries under 25ft of water is shown on the right


And you'd need waders to walk around The San Diego Convention Center, according to the predictions.


The photographs were developed by Pittsburgh-based digital artist Nickolay Lamm, based on sea level-rise mapping data from Climate Central.


His hypothetical scenes show national icons under four levels of flooding at each: 0 feet; 5 feet, which is possible in 100 to 300 years; 12 feet. possible by about 2300; and 25 feet, predicted in the coming centuries.


'The maps – which these illustrations are based off of – are tidally adjusted, meaning they map out areas below different flood heights relative to high tide,' Lamm wrote on his site.


'The illustrations, on the other hand, imagine what the affected areas would look like based on varying degrees of low and medium tide.


'Although no one can predict the exact rate the sea levels will rise, many self storage businesses are making an effort to become more environmentally friendly in an attempt to reduce the chances of these events from occurring.'










With 25 ft of sea level rise in Ocean Drive, the cameraman taking this image would be standing 17.5 ft. of water. The left image shows what the region looks like today. ��Earlier this week, scientists revealed that over the course of the 20th century, sea levels across the globe rose faster than in any of the previous 29 centuries








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Pictured on the left is a real-life scene of Harvard's campus in 100 years if sea level rises 5 feet. The right image shows what it would look like under 12ft of water. A��study earlier this month found that sea level rise caused by man-made climate change could last 10,000 years






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Harvard's campus in the next few centuries if sea level rises 25 feet. The image shows how the campus in Massachusetts would be completely submerged by rising tides


And the need to do this is urgent, scientists say. A recent study has found the 5.5-inch (14cm) global rise is at least twice as much as would have been seen without global warming - and if the trend continues, scientists many of our cities will be underwater.


Earlier this week, scientists revealed that over the course of the 20th century, sea levels across the globe rose faster than in any of the previous 29 centuries.





The research discovered that the 5.5-inch (14cm) global rise is at least twice as much as would have been seen without global warming.


In fact, they believe levels might have actually fallen if it hadn't been for soaring global temperatures.


'The 20th century rise was extraordinary in the context of the last three millennia - and the rise over the last two decades has been even faster,' said professor Robert Kopp, lead author of the report published in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences.


The pattern was revealed by a new statistical analysis technique which extracts global data from local records.


No local record measures global sea level. Instead, each measures sea level at a particular location, where it will differ from the global mean.








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Miami as it is today (left) and what it would look like under 25ft of water (right). Scientists have warned that global warming needs to be curbed drastically to avoid sea level rise








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A real-life view of the Washington Monument today is on the left, while its appearance in a few centuries when sea levels could rise by 25ft is shown on the right


The statistical challenge is to pull out the global signal.





The scientists built a database of geological sea-level indicators from marshes, coral atolls and archaeological sites at 24 locations around the world, covering the past 3,000 years.


They also looked at tide gauge recordings for the last 300 years from 66 other locations.


Many of the records came from the field work of Kemp, Horton, or team members Roland Gehrels of the University of York and Jeffrey Donnelly of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.


This information was used to calculate how temperatures relate to the rate of sea-level change.


Using this new technique, the researchers showed that the world's sea level fell by about 11 inches (8cm) between 1000 and 1400AD, when the planet cooled by about 0.2°C.


Global average temperature today is about 1°C higher than at the end of the 19th century.


It also found that , had global warming not occurred in the 20th century, the change in sea level would 'very likely' have been between a decrease of 1.1 inch (3cm) and a rise of 2.8 inches (7cm).


Instead, the world actually saw a rise of 14cm.


A companion report also found that more than half of the 8,000 coastal nuisance floods observed at US tide gauge sites since 1950 would not have occurred.


Professor Kopp estimates that sea levels will rise by 20 inches to 51 inches (50cm to 130cm) in the 21st century, if the world continues to rely on fossil fuels.


However, it will only rise by 10 inches to 23.5 inches (25cm to 60cm) if fossil fuels are phased out.


'Anthropogenic sea level rise poses challenges to coastal areas worldwide, and robust projections are needed to assess options,' explained the researchers.








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Back Bay in Boston is most famous for its rows of Victorian brownstone homes (left, seen as it is today). However many of these homes could be submerged as a result of rising sea levels. The right image shows a scenario in which 25ft of water floods the region








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Pictured on the left is Boston Habor Hotel as it is today, and what it could look like under 25ft of water. The seas along the East Coast from North Carolina to New England are rising three to four times faster than the global average








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Pictured is a map of Harvard's campus under 25ft of water. 'The maps – which these illustrations are based off of – are tidally adjusted, meaning they map out areas below different flood heights relative to high tide,' Nickolay Lamm wrote on his site


'Here we present an approach that combines information about the equilibrium sea level response to global warming and last century's observed contribution from the individual components to constrain projections for this century.


'While applying semiempirical methodology, our method yields sea level projections that overlap with the process-based estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.'


A separate study earlier this month found that sea level rise caused by man-made climate change could last 10,000 years.


Even if global warming falls below the governments' target of 2°C, around 20 per cent of the world's population will be forced to migrate away from coasts.


That means that unless we cut carbon emission drastically, major cities such as New York, London, and Shanghai, will be completely submerged, scientists have warned.


The study, published in Nature Climate Change, argues that scientists have been short-sighted in looking at the impact of climate change over one or two centuries.


In the research, scientists looked at the impact of four possible levels of carbon pollution—1,280 to 5,120 billion tonnes—emitted between the year 2000 to 2300.


Studying data from over the last 20,000 years, the researchers predicted what will happen to global temperatures, sea level, and ice cover over the next 10,000 years.

WHICH COUNTRIES WILL SUFFER MOST FROM CLIMATE CHANGE?





Scandinavian countries and the UK are among the most likely to survive - but areas of sub-Saharan Africa will be hardest hit


In a separate study, climate change experts recently released a map of the world revealing how prepared different countries are to cope with the effects of climate change (shown above).


In the map 192 countries are ranked by their 'vulnerability' and 'readiness', producing an overall score on their fate, ranging from bad (zero) to excellent (100).


The results reveal that Scandinavian countries and the UK are among the most likely to survive - but areas of sub-Saharan Africa will be hardest hit.


The maps were created by London-based company The Eco Experts, using data from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, known as the ND-Gain Index.


They took into account location, terrain, pollution rates and national resources when calculating which countries would be most affected.


Countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark score well on the scale.


But places like Central America, Africa and India all appear at risk from natural disaster - and are poorly equipped to cope, said The Eco Experts.


Jon Whiting, of The Eco Experts warned: 'Hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, droughts and flooding are all real dangers for some of these areas, and this is compounded by a lack of national strategy to counteract the effects.'


Burundi, Chad, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced some of the lowest scores, meaning these countries will be the biggest victims of weather disasters.






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A map of Ocean Drive in the next few centuries if sea level rises 25 feet (right), much of the area will still be under water if sea levels rose 12ft (left)






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A map of the Washington Monument in the next few centuries if sea level rises 25 feet. Scientists estimate sea levels will rise by 20 inches to 51 inches (50cm to 130cm) in the 21st century






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A map of New York City in 2300 if sea level rises 12 feet is shown is shown on the left, and with 25ft of sea level rise shown on the right. The more extreme scenario will see large parts of Manhattan flooded


The complex modelling effort was led by Michael Eby of the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University.


'Carbon is going up, and even if we stop what we are doing in the relatively near future, the system will continue to respond because it hasn't reached an equilibrium,' Marcott explains.


'If you boil water and turn off the burner, the water will stay warm because heat remains in it.'


A similar but more complex and momentous phenomenon happens in the climate system, according to the study which is written by nearly two dozen leading Earth scientists.


Current releases of the carbon contained in carbon dioxide total about 10 billion tons per year. The number is growing 2.5 per cent annually, more than twice as fast as in the 1990s.


Humans have already put about 580 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the researchers looked at the effect of releasing another 1,280 to 5,120 billion tons between 2000 and 2300.


'In our model, the carbon dioxide input ended in 300 years, but the impact persisted for 10,000 years,' Marcott says.


By 2300, the carbon dioxide level had soared from almost 400 parts per million to as much as 2,000 parts per million.


The most extreme temperature rise - about 7°C by the year 2300 - would taper off only slightly, to about 6°C, after 10,000 years.


The picture is disturbing, says co-author Shaun Marcott, an assistant professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


Perhaps the most ominous finding concerns 'commitment,' Marcott says.


'Most people probably expect that temperature and carbon dioxide will rise together and then temperature will come down when the carbon dioxide input is shut off.


'But carbon dioxide has such a long life in the atmosphere that the effects really depend on how much you put in.


'We are already committed to substantial rises in temperature. The only question is how much more is in the pipe.'