UM Bridge

Cheong: If the situation described by NASA is true, the ice of Artic does thaw and the sea level of the world is going to increase by 23 feet (about 7 meters), Macau would be submerged. Furthermore, many countries in the world would be submerged, too. However, I want to emphasize one point. This report is just a prediction of the sea level from a particular country.

Question: If Macau does submerge, will everywhere be under water? Will the University of Macau still be here?

Cheong: Well. Guessing it through data, the water will reach the first floor of New Century Hotel; any places under that height will be under water. Fortunately, your University of Macau will be still here at that moment.

Question: How reliable is the NASA's project? Is it true that in 2040 all the Arctic ice will thaw?

Cheong: NASA is an authoritative organization which has a lot of experts. I suppose they are using a computer system and the data collected by experts to simulate and predict the situation. However, different organizations or experts will base their findings on different data to make predictions. It should have some differences between them. So, I really can't tell how reliable and accurate the report is. In our experience, even if we are predicting the weather in a week, it will have a 50% inaccuracy. Now, the report is for a few decades, I really can't guess accurately what will happen. Nevertheless, this report has a certain reference value in crisis warning. It is a warning to the entire world.

Question: What is the main reason for the thawing of Arctic ice?

Cheong: Global warming is one of the important reasons for this problem. In the IPCC report released on Feb 2 this year, it points out that the temperature rise of atmosphere and ocean, and the thaw of glaciers show evidences of the global warming. The climate changes during past 50 years are highly possible not because of known natural reasons. It means that human beings are the main reason for this problem.

Question: If there is really a possibility of submergence, what can we do to prevent it? And if it does happen, what can we do to escape?

Cheong: Remember this: the process of submerging will not be in a few seconds or hours. It will be a slow increase every year and we have enough time to escape. Therefore, what we have to do is to coordinate with other countries, executing the measures to prevent global warming or to slow down the process of global warming, such as, decreasing the emission of greenhouse gases, like CO2 from cars or factories. Saving the energy is also good for it.

Question: Scenes in movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" or "Water World", will those scenes happen?

Cheong: Since plots of these films are usually fictitious, I will not give any analysis or comment on this question.

So, what will be your decision before the possible doomsday? Our advice: Make a backup plan before 2040.