tailieunhanh - The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis

Understanding the long-term patterns of speciation and extinction may help sci- entists answer some of the biggest questions about today’s patterns of bio diver- sity—such as why the tropics are so diverse. David Jablonski, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, has tackled the question by analyzing the fossil record of bivalves, noting where they were located, how large their ranges became, and how long they endured. Jablonski’s analysis of 3,599 species from the past 11 million years revealed a striking pattern. Twice as many new genera of bivalves had emerged in the tropi- cal oceans than had emerged in cooler waters. Jablonski found that once new bivalve genera. | Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized WPS4136 The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries A Comparative Analysis By Susmita Dasgupta Benoit Laplante Craig Meisner David Wheeler and Jianping Yan World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 4136 February 2007 The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings interpretations and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the view of the World Bank its Executive Directors or the countries they represent. Policy Research Working Papers are available online at http . Development Research Group World Bank. Independent consultants Canada. Senior Fellow Center for Global Development Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Susmita Dasgupta World Bank 1818 H Street NW Washington DC 20433 sdasgupta@. Acknowledgements Funding for this project was provided by the Canadian Trust Fund TF030569 sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency CIDA . We would also like to extend our special thanks to Piet Buys Uwe Deichmann and Jillian Kingston for their guidance and valuable help. Abstract Sea level rise SLR due to climate change is a serious global threat The scientific evidence is now overwhelming. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming could well promote SLR of 1m-3m in this century and unexpectedly rapid breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets might produce a 5m SLR. In this paper we have assessed the consequences of continued SLR for 84 developing countries. Geographic Information System GIS software has been used to overlay the best available .