Floods Threaten US and Europe First
If the polar icecaps continue melting then the sea levels will rise, causing floods. Up until now it had been thought that regions most at risk from the flooding would be tropical islands in the Pacific. However new research suggests that the US and Europe could be hit first.
Computer models run by Detlef Stammer of Hamburg University show that the pattern of flooding is unlikely to be even across the globe. Instead the water from the Greenland ice cap is likely to remain mostly in the Atlantic for almost fifty years. First to be hit by floods will be northern areas such as coastal areas of the US and Europe. In particular, sea-level rises on the East coast of the USA could be 30 times greater than in the Pacific.
That should serve to focus some minds!