Sea levels could rise TWO METRES in 80 years claims expert

As many as 1.5million homes will be at an elevated risk of flooding by 2080 due to melting Arctic ice, the Environmental Audit Committee has been warned by scientists. 

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have already locked in a 17.5 to 52.4mm sea level rise by 2100, but the consequences for the UK could be severe long before then.

Express.co.uk spent the summer shining a light on the UK’s most illustrious coastal destinations – from Southwold in Suffolk to Lincolnshire’s Skegness to Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria.

An interactive map produced by Climate Central – a US-based non-profit researching the impacts of global warming – shows that many of these places may well be engulfed by the waves as soon as 2050.

Check below if your beloved beach town is set to be lost to the sea.

READ MORE: UK seaside town with ‘best views’ faces fears of 5G mast ‘ruining it forever’

Chair of the Sub-Committee on Polar Research James Gray said: “Before melting glaciers and ice sheets contribute to widespread flooding and irreversible weather patterns in the UK, we must throw our full toolbox at understanding changes in the Arctic better.”

Coastal and low-lying areas are particularly vulnerable to flooding and could be completely submerged if action is not taken, MPs were told. Railways could be washed away, roads disappear and farmland turned into swamp.

From Kent to Cumbria, few places will be spared. The family-friendly surf spot of Bude in Cornwall – so beautiful “even the Sainsbury’s car park is a tourist attraction” – is set to have its town centre reclaimed by the Atlantic.

Up the same stretch of coast, Lynmouth in North Devon and Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset are due to suffer a similar fate.

Rising sea levels also increase the rate at which Britain’s coasts are eroding, putting shorefront communities at even greater risk. The rugged, rocky south coast offers little protection.

From Deal in Kent – just a stone’s throw from London and frequently noted as one of the best places to live in the UK – to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight and Bognor Regis, once crowned the country’s “sunniest hotspot”.

This is certainly not just an English problem. Many of the most famous resorts in Wales are at risk of irreversible flooding too. The Pembrokeshire Coast’s “little gem” Aberaeron, as well as holiday favourites Aberwystwyh, Fairbourne and Rhyl – the place once cruelly dubbed the “Costa del Dole” –  are all in danger.

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Alarmingly, densely populated Welsh port cities Newport, Cardiff and Swansea are also slated to be severely impacted by rising seas. The same can be said in England for the south of Blackpool, Gosport and Southhampton, not to mention vast swathes of south, east and west London.

Up north, Merseyside’s Southport, with its once-iconic peer now “left to rot” by the council is on course to have the Irish Sea wash up its streets, and the North Sea is set to bring a similar fate to Blyth in Northumberland – where one can snap up a house for just £132,000 – and Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, home to England’s best beach.

Infamously the most deprived town in the UK, Jaywick in Essex – the star of Channel 5’s “Benefits by the Sea” and place where “strangers dump sofas in your garden” – also makes the list. The neglected sea wall has already come close to being topped.

Coastal communities have long since been singled out as having higher rates of deprivation, with poorer access to services and lower employment growth. These issues will be exacerbated by their bearing of the brunt of rising sea levels.

At the Flood and Coast Conference in Telford last summer, Environment Agency (EA) chief executive Sir James Bevan said: “While we can come back safely and build back better after most river flooding, there is no coming back for land that coastal erosion has taken away or which a rising sea level has put permanently or frequently under water.”

Welcoming his comments at the time, Jim Hall, professor of climate and environmental risks at Oxford University, said: “Even if the EA could afford to build coast protection everywhere – which they cannot – the things that many people cherish about the coast, like beaches and sand dunes, will eventually become submerged unless we start to plan now for how the coastline can adjust to rising sea levels.”

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