Venetians and tourists wade through water almost waist-deep after the Italian city was hit by high tides this week, a strong southerly wind and heavy rain. More than 70% of Venice was flooded, with water reaching 149cm above sea level. Tourists attempted to cross St Mark's Square, desperately trying to keep themselves and their belongings dry.

Via The Guardian:

The floods that have devastated Italy over the past week could become even more severe in the future, threatening food production and destroying the country's natural beauty, experts warn.
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In Venice water levels were receding after the city's sixth-worst flooding since records began in 1872.

Leading Italian meteorologist Mario Giuliacci said: "The Mediterranean has warmed up by 1C to 1.5C in the last 20 years, meaning that Atlantic weather fronts passing over it absorb more vapour and more heat, which means more energy. And that means ever more violent storms and more rain when the fronts hit Italy.

"An average of 80mm of rain should fall in Italy in November. In the last 40 years it has gone over 100mm 11 times, seven of which are since 1999," he added.
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However, a clear pattern of climate change is emerging, and affecting Italy's agricultural output, an official from Italy's farmer's lobby, Coldiretti, said.

Italy's wine harvest dropped 6% to a 40-year low, while the apple harvest was down by 22%, pears by 13%, chestnuts by 50% and honey by 25%. Production of flour destined for making pasta dropped by 12%.

This video was uploaded to YouTube in November 2011, and discusses the climate change reality in Kiribati, and that the inhabitants may soon have to leave their island homes because of the rising sea level. Kiribati is a low-lying island nation located in the South Pacific. There is mention of the possibility of have to relocate "in a few years." It has been about four months, and already the people of Kiribati are preparing to relocate. Their island homes are being swallowed up by the rising sea level.

Via:

In what could be the world's first climate-induced migration of modern times, Anote Tong, the Kiribati president, said he was in talks with Fiji's military government to buy up to 5,000 acres of freehold land on which his countrymen could be housed.

Some of Kiribati's 32 pancake-flat coral atolls, which straddle the equator over 1,350,000 square miles of ocean, are already disappearing beneath the waves.

Most of its 113,000 people are crammed on to Tarawa, the administrative centre, a chain of islets which curve in a horseshoe shape around a lagoon.

"This is the last resort, there's no way out of this one," Mr Tong said.

"Our people will have to move as the tides have reached our homes and villages."

The Kiribati government has launched an educational program for its people with the goal of giving them skills to find employment in Fiji in order to survive, and also that they might be more appealing as potential migrants.

As they prepare to leave behind their homeland, their culture and lifestyle, Mr. Tong hopes that the international community will make funds available for their urgent need, the land purchase, and setting up homes for over 100,000 people. Then there's still the matter of persuading the government of Fiji to agree to this plan. And all the while the tides flow further inland on Kiribati.