Waterworld

My house disappears under water at around 2 metres of sea level rise. So, hopefully- barring an exceptional storm surge or tsunami - I should be safe for the rest of my lifetime (a global average sea level rise of roughly 0.3-1.0 metres is projected by 2100).

You can discover when your own home will be claimed by rising seas using the Sea Level Rise Interactive Map. There are already oceans of sea level rise maps out there, including Climate Central's popular Coastal Risk Screening Tool. The reason I've decided to review yet another sea level rise simulator is that the Sea Level Rise Interactive Map includes a neat slider that lets you gradually drown the world.

Drag the slider upwards and you can watch as coastlines retreat and entire countries disappear beneath the waves. Keep going and, at around 3,500 metres of sea level rise, only the Andes and the Himalayas remain above water.

The map is based on a global digital elevation model, highlighting every area that lies below a user-defined elevation threshold in blue. It isn't a hydrological flood model, so it doesn't attempt to simulate how water would actually spread across the landscape. Instead, it provides a simple elevation-based visualisation, meaning it ignores factors such as tides, storm surges, coastal defences, drainage and land subsidence.

That limitation means you shouldn't treat the simulator as a prediction of future flooding. However, it does make it an effective tool for exploring the relationship between topography and sea levels.