The coasts of south-eastern Sicily could undergo progressive submersion, with an alleged loss of about 10 sq km of surface in 2100, due to the planet's climate changes.
This is what emerges from the study carried out as part of the Pianeta Dinamico project that the Ministry of Research and the University financed to the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology carried out by Ingv with the Aldo Moro University of Bari, that of Catania and the Dutch Radboud and published in the international magazine 'Remote Sensing'.
"We know that from 1880 onwards the sea level began to increase by 14-17 centimeters, but today it is accelerating and rises at a rate of over 30 cm per century - explains Giovanni Scicchitano, associate of Geomorphology in Bari - and in particular, if greenhouse gas emissions will not be reduced, the sea level could rise by 1.1 meters in 2100 and by several meters in the following two or three centuries ".
"We calculated the projections of sea level rise - underlines Marco Anzidei, researcher at Ingv and first author of the research - for different climatic scenarios and on the basis of various parameters, including thermal expansion of the sea, melting of ice. the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and, finally, the vertical movements of the soil. Together with the researchers Ingv Cristiano Tolomei, Christian Bignami and Enrico Serpelloni, we evaluated the deformations of the soil with spatial data of the areas that will be potentially flooded in 2050 and in 2100, evaluating the scenarios in six coastal zones ".
"The results for the plain of Catania - reveals Carmelo Monaco, Professor of Structural Geology in Catania - indicate that, in the area between the Simeto and San Leonardo rivers, the loss of territory at 2100 would be considerable, with the sea invading the depressed area for several hundred meters. In the port of Augusta some industrial areas could be involved. The port of Syracuse is the area that would suffer most from a potential sea level rise at 2100: the area of the mouth of the river Ciane could be invaded by the sea for an extension of up to 1 km inland from the current shore line. The Salt Pans of the Ciane River, currently a Nature Reserve and which in recent years have already undergone a retreat measured by satellite data of about 70 meters , would be totally submerged. A similar fate could befall the Vendicari Reserve, whose wetlands could disappear, leaving scattered relict islands ".
(HANDLE).