Europe is a continent of coasts. Indented and irregular, its serpentine shores stretch almost 24,000 miles, though they’re shrinking, and shrinking quickly. Across Europe, seas are rising at an average rate of around 2 to 4 millimeters per year. And though that may sound small, that rate is far from insignificant, threatening to swallow up Europe's low-lying costal cities, like Venice and Amsterdam.
Though the current threat to the coastal communities of Europe is unprecedented — and undeniably connected to human-caused climate change — surging seas aren't a completely modern concern. Over the centuries and the millennia past, the tides have taken a number of ancient cities, or parts of ancient cities, in and around Europe, thanks to earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters.
Plumbed by underwater archaeologists, submerged sites like Pavlopetri and Heracleion serve as a climate change warning, as well as a treasure trove for all sorts of ...
