§ Mr. William RossTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what studies have been carried out by or on behalf of Her Majesty's Government to ascertain whether and to what extent sea levels can be expected to rise in the next 60 years as a result of the greenhouse effect; and what areas of the present United Kingdom coastline would be under water at the lowest and highest projections for sea levels.
§ Mrs. Virginia Bottomley[holding answer 21 July 1989]: The Meteorological Office has made a major international contribution to modelling climate change including its impact on sea level. This work has contributed to the current consensus that the sea level rise which would follow a doubling of effective greenhouse gas concentrations could lie between 20 cm and about 1.5 m. Costs of defending the coastline increase with sea level rise.
The actual sea level rise over the next 60 years, and therefore the land area threatened, depends on the actual rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. Providing the best available scientific advice on this and all other aspects of the greenhouse effect is the task of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, for which the science review panel is chaired by the Meteorological Office and funded by the Department of the Environment and the Department of Energy.