Anders Levermann said it is only a matter of time before Venice “drowns” for good in a shocking interview with German publication De Zeit days after a terrifying flood in the Italian city saw water levels triple to more than 1.5 m within a week.

He said: “Based on the power of physical laws, we can say that in the future we will experience extreme weather events like this with climate change more frequently and more intensively.
“The warmer we make the planet, the more powerful the heavy rainfall and the higher the sea level. All of this may have intensified the flooding in Venice. In this case, another factor could have contributed: the jetstream.
“A look at the current course of the stream shows that the winds do not blow from west to east, as they usually do north of Italy, but that they have swerved slightly under Europe and are moving from the south to the northwest in Italy.”
He also claims there flooding in Venice to be connected to the extreme snowfall in Austria. This is exactly how there could also be a connection with the high water in Venice. Whether that is true, must be examined in more detail though.”.
For every degree that the Earth is warming, according to our calculations, which IPCC has taken on board, we will see a sea-level rise of about two and a half metres. Although this happens very slowly – possibly within hundreds of years – it also means:
In the long run, Venice will be under the sea level.
If we kept the 2-degree target of the Paris Climate Agreement, we would have to expect about 5 metres of sea-level rise in the long term.

“Venice will definitely drown. Large coastal cities such as Hamburg, and New York would also have to adjust to the fact that large parts will be metres below sea level.