Title: Why Are Rising Sea Levels a Threat?
Headings: Why Are Rising Sea Levels a Threat?
Why Are Rising Sea Levels a Threat?
Threat From the Sea
It'll Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Content: The current sea-level rise is a consequence of melting Arctic ice, to an extent, but the blame is more focused on melting ice caps and the thermal expansion of water as it gets warmer. Threat From the Sea
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of leading climate scientists, sea levels have risen some 3.1 millimeters per year since 1993. That's seven and a half inches between 1901 and 2010. The United Nations Environment Program estimates that some 80 percent of people live within 62 miles of the coast, with about 40 percent living within 37 miles of coastline. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reports that low-lying island nations, especially in equatorial regions, have been hardest hit by this phenomenon. Some are threatened with total disappearance. Rising seas have already swallowed up two uninhabited islands in the Central Pacific. On Samoa, thousands of residents have moved to higher ground as shorelines have retreated by as much as 160 feet. And islanders on Tuvalu are scrambling to find new homes as saltwater intrusion has made their groundwater undrinkable, while increasingly strong hurricanes and ocean swells have devastate shoreline structures. The World Wild Fund says that rising sea levels throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world have inundated coastal ecosystems, decimating local plant and wildlife populations.