A pair of huge and difficult maritime proposals in the United Kingdom would, if successful, protect millions of people from long-term rising sea levels, in one case, and in the other, connect Scotland with Northern Ireland. Whether either project will survive detailed scrutiny remains to be seen.
Costing up to $540 billion, the more ambitious dam scheme, promoted by Dutch and German research organizations, is “mainly a warning,” notes Sjoerd Groeskamp, an oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. The scale of investment “reveals the immensity” of the sea-level threat “hanging over our heads,” he adds.