If you’ve been hiding gills behind your ears and covering up your webbed toes and fingers, take heart — your day might be coming. According to the BBC scientists at a climate change conference in Copenhagen have stated that earlier UN estimates of rising water levels could have been too conservative.

Taking polar melting and ice break off into account, new projections of sea level growth are now a meter (39.37 inches) or more by 2100. Previous estimates by the UN were a maximum surge of 59cm (23.2 inches). With ten per cent of the world’s population, 600 million people or thereabouts living below sea level, it would be a bit like a Global Katrina. David Shukman reports:

At Lowestoft, on the UK’s east coast, the Environment Agency official in charge of coastal protection, David Kemp, said that even small rises in sea level could be overwhelming. ‘Put bluntly, if it’s 10cm below the height of the defence, then there’s no problem,’ he said. ‘But if it’s 10cm above the defence, then we could be looking at devastation.
It looks very benign today but the North Sea can turn into a very ferocious beast.’

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