Sea Level Rise

Sea level rise, driven by melting ice and warming water, threatens coastal cities, ecosystems, and millions of lives through flooding and land loss.

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Quick Facts (2025-2026)

U.S. coasts accelerating: Sea level rise along the U.S. coast has more than doubled over the past century, increasing flood risks.
New Jersey at risk: Jersey Shore sea levels could rise up to 3.8 ft (≈1.15 m) by 2100, causing record flooding days.
Bangladesh threat: Up to 18 % of coastal land may be permanently submerged by 2100 under high emissions.
Australia exposure: 1.5 million Australians could face direct sea level impacts by 2050, even with limited warming.
Economic impact: Asia‑Pacific coastal damages could reach $500 billion per year by 2100 without adaptation.
Pacific island adaptation costs: For some small island developing states (Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands), the cost of adapting to sea-level rise is already overwhelming; the World Bank estimates that Pacific island nations alone may require nearly US$10 billion in adaptation investments, equivalent to two decades of their combined economic output.

Rising seas threaten traditional livelihoods: Fishermen navigate shrinking beaches and stronger waves as coastal communities face the growing impacts of climate change.

Cost of Sea Level Rise

Stories

Global Hotspots

Global “hotspots” where there is projected to be a significant increase in episodic flooding by the end of the century. This map depicts regions facing potential socio-economic and environmental consequences resulting from sea level rise (Source). It shows where sea level rise could potentially have significant socio-economic and environmental impacts – like risks to assets, livelihoods, and infrastructure. Bangladesh is one example of a country highly vulnerable to the effects of sea level rise – read more about this here.

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Regional Hotspots

Coloured dots show the magnitude of the projected extreme sea level (ESL) at the coast, which is calculated from a variety of parameters affecting sea level rise, and the blue shading represents the approximate extent of flood-prone areas around each continent. See more on this study from nature.com HERE.

These maps show where sea level rise could potentially have significant socio-economic and environmental impacts (eg asset damage, risks to livelihood, etc.).

The Arctic region is warming an average of 4 times faster than the global average. This striking and well documented change is driving such global effects as sea level rise from the mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet, and additional warming due to permafrost carbon emissions.

Nearly 600 million people live in coastal zones worldwide. If sea levels rise, they will be increasingly vulnerable to dislocation from these areas which generate approximately US$1 trillion of global wealth (Kirezci et al. 2020).

Greenland Ice Melt

The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest on Earth (after Antarctica) and holds the equivalent of 7.4m of potential sea level rise (BedMachine v3.- Morlighem et al., 2017). This means its stability – or lack of it – has critical consequences for global sea levels and coastal communities.

The Greenland ice sheet is rapidly losing mass, which contributes directly to rising sea levels. After a period of relative stability in the 1990s, the ice sheet began losing mass at an increasing rate (Mouginot et al., 2019). Record-breaking losses – the biggest since monitoring began in the 1950s – occurred in 2012 and 2019 (IMBIE et al., 2020) contributing up to 1.5 mm per year to rising sea levels.

Recent satellite data indicate that Greenland’s ice loss has remained consistently high through the mid-2020s, with about 130–140 gigatonnes of ice disappearing each year in 2025. This amount of melt contributes roughly 0.4 mm of global sea-level rise annually, meaning Greenland alone is responsible for about 4 cm of sea-level rise per century if the rate continues. Overall, the ice sheet is now adding around 0.7–1.0 mm of sea-level rise over recent decades, confirming a sustained long-term trend of significant ice mass decline (Copernicus, NOAA, 2025–2026 assessments).

Check the latest data on Greenland here.

WEF: Cost of Sea Level Rise

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The economic cost of sea-level rise is escalating. An economic modelling study (2021) estimates that permanent coastal flooding could reduce global GDP by 0.19% (equivalent to approximately US$210–220 billion annually in today's economy) and displace 1.46% of the world's population (around 120 million people) by 2200, even when adaptation measures are considered.

A 2026 study, also shows that climate-driven sea-level rise has made extreme coastal flood events approximately 12 times more likely than in the past, increasing risks to communities, infrastructure, and coastal economies worldwide (Dangendorf et al. 2026).

Furthermore, emerging evidence suggests that sea levels along many coastlines have been underestimated by roughly 30 cm on average, and by more than 1 meter in some parts of Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific, implying that adaptation costs and exposure estimates may be significantly higher than previously assumed (Seeger and Minderhoud 2026).

Without investments in adaptation, migration, and resilient infrastructure, losses could rise dramatically.