The oceans have been rising for centuries at a few mm per year. Looks like you are getting scared for no reason, especially since UK is a wealthy country that can adjust.

On the other hand, it is possible that rather than being submerged, the UK will be 40% submitted to Islam.

No. If you melt all ice on earth and dump the water into the oceans, sea level will rise some 70 meters or so. This will flood any lowlands, but not all of the UK is below about 70 m above current sea level; most is not, as far as I know. That is the worst-case possibility, and it would require a very very long time (millennia) to happen.

The dire forecasts concerning short-term (within a century) do not even expect a 1 meter rise in sea level. The current worst-case predictions are for about a 1 meter rise in the next 300 years.

Coastal lowlands will see increasing flooding during sea level rise, if it in fact occurs, and a lot of tidewater or near sea-level coastal land will be permanent inundated. It would be a relatively slow but unstoppable capture of land by the sea. The main issue is that a good proportion of our population lives in coastal areas that would be affected.

It is sort of like how Venice has been sinking, if you want a real example where the land is in process of being captured by the sea (in the case of Venice, though, it is because the land is sinking and not because of rising sea level), perhaps the Mississippi delta areas of Louisiana (New Orleans is sinking). The major difference is that the invasion of the sea would be everywhere rather than localized.

I can understand exactly what you’re saying and given the recent weather in the UK I can see why you’re asking.

For months now the UK has been battered by one storm after another and the south has seen record breaking rainfall, last month was the wettest ever recorded and there’s no sign of any let up happening soon.

However, it’s important to keep things in context. The extreme weather is largely caused by a disruption to the high altitude winds that blow around the planet, this wind is pulling in one weather system after another from the Atlantic which is causing the strong winds and heavy rain. Once this wind system returns to normal the bad weather will be over.

Can it get worse in the future? Yes it will, but it won’t be anything like as bad as 40% of the UK being submerged.

The UK now gets three times as many floods as it used to – that’s the long-term average. In more recent years it’s been six times as many floods. In the future the number of floods will increase and the UK will get more disrupted weather.

It means that low-lying places and coastal areas will become more vulnerable, that’s why so many flood defences are being constructed. The recent flooding may appear bad but the defences that have gone up in recent years have prevented flooding to more than a million homes, it could have been much worse.

The type of flooding that’s going to occur most in the UK will be associated with river systems that can’t cope with the volume of water. This can be addressed by slowing down the rate at which water enters the rivers and one way to do this is to plant more grass, crops and trees on the higher ground; it’s already been tried and it works.

Whilst the weather will be different in the future it’s not necessarily going to be all that bad. There will be more hot days and farmers will benefit from longer growing seasons.

The UK is already seeing more extremes of weather and in recent years weather records have been broken left, right and centre. This trend will continue and it will be necessary to adapt to the changing climate, this won’t be all that hard to do and for the vast majority of people in the UK climate change won’t be too much of a problem.

So, don’t worry about the future. The weather will be different but not all bad.

If you want an expert answer, you should ask an expert. In this case, the InterGovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are the ones to refer to. They gather reports on present-day sea level rise from around the world, as well as projections for the future.

Notice the word "projections" is used here, not "forecast". Anyone who mentions "forecast" or "forecasts" is guessing or repeating something they heard or read elsewhere. A projection implies uncertainty and that means it may well change in the future as processes become better observed and understood.

The latest IPCC report (2013) states this:

"For high emissions IPCC now predicts a global rise by 52-98 cm by the year 2100, which would threaten the survival of coastal cities and entire island nations. But even with aggressive emissions reductions, a rise by 28-61 cm is predicted"

This will have serious impacts on many coastal areas, including coastal erosion and a greatly increased risk of flooding, so should you be worried? In the USA, there was a lot of climate change denial, until their weather started going freaky - just as climate change science predicted might happen. The weather in the UK is also misbehaving and even the Prime Minister suspects climate change - if not causing it - is helping it happen. Unfortunately, his Party contains many members who are involved in fossil fuel companies and they are now panicking and trying to delay dealing with climate change.

Look at any insurance company's records over the last 20 years or so - they are paying out more and more each year in weather-damage claims. They won't keep on doing that and are complaining to governments worldwide. Farmers, who fields (all around the world) are under water are complaining. The southwest of the UK has lost millions of pounds through losing their railway - they are complaining.

So whether the UK Government and other deniers like it or not, the complaints will increase in volume until something is done and action is taken to reduce the worst effects of climate change. The hard choice will be "Which bits can we afford to save/protect?" So should you be worried? No. Should you be concerned and try to do your bit to cut down greenhouse gases? Yes.

The maximum sea level can rise is about 190 feet and that's only going to happen if the polar ice caps completely melt. So no the UK can never completely submerge. London and most Port cities would be underwater though.

This crazy weather, is the same event that is freezing North America, they have a blocking high on the eastern seaboard, you have a blocking Azores High which is sending low pressure systems across UK, this happens occasionally, the Somerset flooding is an engineering problem, diversion of drainage higher up, and silting rivers lower down.

Some things to think about.

■ If you are younger than 17 then the world has not warmed in your lifetime.

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/fro...

■ One etymology of Somerset suggests that it meant "summer lands". It was called that because it was too wet in winter to be useful. The monks 1000 years ago tried to reduce the water there and we have been trying ever since. The Somerset Moors are below peak tide level.

■ Over 20,000 years ago, it was possible to walk from the UK to Germany. Then the sea rose. Sea level rise is not new.

http://geolog.egu.eu/wp-content/uploads/...