Sea level rise: Perth the first capital to go under

Australia has a new government appointed climate change body, the Coast and Climate Change Council chaired by Tim Flannery who, true to form, immediately launches into the gloom and doom:

If you get a six-metre sea level surge with a cyclone on a place like the Gold Coast you have got very serious trouble.

The thing about sea level rise is that its inexorable, it strikes at all coasts at the same time.

Sea level rise is not affecting all areas equally, however. It's not like there's going to be a simultaneous national sea level rise emergency.

The net relative sea level trend in mm/year after subtracting the effects of the vertical movement of the platform and the inverse barometric pressure effect utilising all the data collected since the start of the project up to the end of June 2009. (Source: Bureau of Meteorology)