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From the sinking city of Venice to the mass bleaching of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, climate change is drastically impacting some of the world’s most treasured heritage sites.
To date, over 1,000 bucket-list locations have earned a spot on UNESCO’s World Heritage list on account of their “outstanding universal value” to humanity.
But, if the world continues to warm – driven predominately by human activity through greenhouse gas emissions – many of these landmarks may lose some of those “outstanding” values or even cease to exist at all.
Perhaps the starkest example is Greenland’s impressive Ilulissat Icefjord, a World Heritage site where the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is literally melting before our eyes, partly because of global warming.
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Icebergs that broke off from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier in Ilulissat, Greenland.
The fjord is even marketed by the Government of Greenland as an opportunity to witness climate change in action, and a destination to see “before it’s too late.”
“Virtually every World Heritage site has some level of threat from climate change,” said Adam Markham, deputy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy NGO based in the United States.
At some locations the threat is obvious and imminent.
Yellowstone National Park in the US, for example, is experiencing shorter winters with less snowfall, warmer rivers, shrinking lakes and wetlands, and longer fire seasons, according to a joint report by the United Nations Environment Programme, UNESCO and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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Yellowstone contains half of the globe's known geothermal features, and is home to an array of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves and bison.
Scientists estimate that nearly half of the wetlands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem could be lost, and more frequent fires will likely lead to its dense forest becoming a more open woodland, over time.
Elsewhere, El Nño events are warming waters around the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador and disrupting food supplies on which many Galápagos species rely.
Rising sea levels and higher waves during storms are threatening to topple the mysterious moai statues on remote Rapa Nui – also known as Easter Island – in the southeastern Pacific Ocean.
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Easter Island, or Hanga Roa, is the most remote inhabited island on the planet. Carved from solid basalt between the 13th and 16th centuries, the group of more than 800 massive stone monuments known as moai scattered across the volcanic landscape are the legacy of a Polynesian society that settled here around 300 AD.
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Ruled successively by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and the Order of the Knights of St. John, which built the city in the 16th century, Valletta is one of the world's rare urban inhabited sites that's been preserved near perfectly. Crammed into a tiny fortified peninsula, the site comprises 320 monuments, making it one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world.
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For sheer diversity, Yellowstone National Park is among the world's great natural wonders. Contained within a 9,000-square-kilometer chunk of Wyoming, the world's first national park contains half of the globe's known geothermal features, and is home to an equally impressive array of wildlife including grizzlies, wolves and bison.
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It's still on the tentative list of sites to be brought into the UNESCO fold. But as Myanmar's tourism industry expands, Bagan's profile is gaining prominence. The capital city of the first Myanmar Kingdom, this enormous Buddhist complex on the Irrawaddy River contains more than 2,500 intricate monuments dating to the 10th century.
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Sculpted by erosion, the Goreme valley and its surroundings contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Within the rugged natural landscape, villages and underground towns dating to the 4th century can be observed.
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Scattered between the twisting roots of the Cambodian jungle, this site dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu contains the remains of Khmer Empire capitals dating from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Among the most famous of its 100-strong group of monuments is the Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the sculptural Bayon Temple.
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Looming over the city of Athens, this ancient Grecian citadel was built in the 5th century BC and continually beautified through the years. Despite being attacked and pillaged by everyone from the Byzantines to the Venetians, the site still stands to provide important insight into Greek mythology.
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Between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, Petra acted as the capital of the Nabataean caravanning kingdom from around the 6th century BC. Abandoned in the 2nd century AD after an earthquake crippled its water management system, the desert city carved from rose-red limestone remains one of the world's most important archaeological sites.
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Among the first sites to be listed by UNESCO in the 1970s, this otherworldly archipelago is located in the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean. On top of its bevy of endemic species that have remained unchanged for centuries, the island groups' location at the confluence of three ocean currents also attracts a diverse array of marine life.
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The spectacular semicircular waterfall that forms the border of Argentina and Brazil spans almost 300 meters in diameter and up to 80 meters in height. It's home to wildlife from neon-winged butterflies to sly caiman to elusive jaguar.
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Composed of more than 3,000 individual reefs interspersed with more than 600 topical islands, the world's most extensive coral reef system has been protected since 1981. A 2012 study found that the delicate ecosystem has lost more than half of its coral since 1985 due to a combination of factors including coral bleaching caused by climate change.
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Located between emerald banana plantations in eastern Karnataka, the enormous group of monuments that comprise the former capital of the last great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara date to the 14th century. Hampi highlights include elephant stables, Kallina Ratha (Stone Chariot) and towering Virupaksha Temple.
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Encompassing the largest ice mantle outside of Antarctica, this picturesque southern Patagonian park bordering Chile is one of the best places in the world to observe glacial activity. Its most famous ice mass is the cool blue Perito Mereno Glacier, from which giant icebergs can be observed crashing into the milky turquoise waters of Lake Argentino.
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The sites that comprise Cusco's Sacred City are spectacular in their own right, but nothing prepares a visitor for sunrise over the Incan city of Machu Picchu. At 2,430 meters above sea level, in the midst of a tropical mountain forest, the 15th-century settlement was among the few Inca sites that wasn't plundered by Spanish invaders.
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On a rocky islet on the coast of Normandy, this fortified village built in the shadow of a Gothic-style Benedictine abbey appears to float on the ocean at high tide. Despite its seemingly unstable sandbank foundations, the picturesque village has survived since the 11th century.
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Comprising the Pyramid fields from Giza to Dahshur, including the majestic Great Sphinx, the Old Kingdom of Egypt was considered one of the seven wonders of the world in Hellenistic times. The dozens of tombs buried in the shadows of the famous pyramids have provided archaeologists a glimpse into one of the world's most fascinating civilizations.
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Located in northern Tanzania and spilling into nearby Kenya, where the conservation area is known as the Masai Mara, this iconic savannah hosts the annual migration of 2 million wildebeest, zebra and gazelle followed by their predators, in search of pasture and water. The phenomenal natural spectacle is the largest remaining animal migration in the world.
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A breathtaking sight within the country's so-called cultural triangle, this ancient Ceylon city is also known as Lion Mountain for the giant clawed feet carved into the granite alongside a staircase leading to the remains of a fortified palace built atop the 370-meter peak. The site also features a series of stunning frescoes and lashings of "Sigiri graffiti," one of the most ancient texts in the Sinhalese language.
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There are at least 30 Mayan ruins scattered throughout Mexico and Central America. Idyllically situated on a rocky cliff facing the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea, Tulum was one of the last cities built and inhabited by the Mayans, managing to survive around 70 years after the Spanish began occupying Mexico in the early 16th century.
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Founded in the 5th century and spread over 118 small islands, Venice is an architectural masterpiece in which even the smallest buildings contain works by some of the world's greatest artists. Italy boasts the most World Heritage Sites of any nation (47).
One in four natural World Heritage sites is highly threatened by climate change, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) global assessment of 241 natural sites.
This trend doubled from 2014 to 2017, according to the report, making climate change the “fastest growing threat.”
Rising sea temperatures have affected coral reefs, such as the Aldabra Atoll in the Indian Ocean, the Belize Barrier Reef in the Atlantic and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, in recent years.
In 2016 and 2017, marine heat waves caused by climate change killed about half of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef, along with many others around the world.
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A turtle swims over bleached coral at Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016.
And if climate change doesn’t slow down, IUCN predicts more sites will likely suffer in the near future.
Mechtild Rossler, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, said they have been continuously monitoring the effects of climate change on heritage.
“If we cannot protect those sites from these threats – and they have multiple threats – how will the future look?” she told CNN.
“The (World Heritage) Convention says you have to identify those unique sites and transmit it to future generations. If we have nothing left to transmit, this is a dramatic situation.”
One solution could be to develop a climate vulnerability index, explained Markham. This would enable countries managing heritage sites to better understand, monitor and address the risk of climate change.
Rossler stressed the need for strategies to adapt to extreme weather events and extreme environments, often tapping into knowledge and traditions of local communities.
For example, in the fragile environment of World Heritage-listed Serra de Tramuntana, in Mallorca, where water resources are scarce, people have successfully revived traditional watering systems, she explained.
“If a site is well managed the chances that it addresses climate change better is high,” said Rossler.
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The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, is one of 156 World Heritage sites in the coastal Mediterranean endangered by the effects of climate change, according to a study published in Nature Communications.
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The Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Cathedral in the "Square of Miracle" in Italy are in danger of flooding by 2100 due to climate change, says a study by the Coastal Risks and Sea-Level Rise Research Group.
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Rising sea levels and increasing erosion, the study said, may endanger historical icons such as this petrified victim of the volcanic eruption of Mont Vesuvius in 79 AD at the archaeological site of Pompeii, in Italy.
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Like Split, Croatia, many of the endangered World Heritage sites sit on or near the water. Our ancestors choose to build there because of the access to fishing and commerce.
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Venice is one of the cities at highest risk of destruction by the effects of climate change. Rising sea waters have flooded the city for centuries, but the study's projections show it could face 8 foot high floods due to rising sea levels within 80 years.
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Due to the steep topography of many of the sites clustered along the Mediterranean Sea, most cities, then and now, were built at the water's edge.
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The Avenue of the Knights in the medieval Old Town of Rhodes, Greece, is also in danger. "If our common heritage is destroyed or lost, it is not possible to replace or rebuild it," said lead study author Lena Reimann, a doctoral researcher for the Coastal Risks and Sea-Level Rise Research Group in Germany.
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Dubrovnik, a 16th-century citadel and tourist spot on Croatia's Adriatic Sea, is another of the region's most endangered historical sites.
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In the Israeli port city of Haifa, future erosion from rains and rising sea levels will eat away at the foundations of such wonders as the terraced gardens and the golden Shrine of Bab.
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The beautiful villages in the "Cinque Terre" area of Italy are at high risk by the year 2100 from erosion caused by climate change, according to the study.
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The ancient city of Ephesus is one of the sites in greatest danger from future erosion caused by climate change, said the study. Ephesus was an Ancient Greek city, but excavations of the site have revealed grand monuments from the Roman Imperial period including the remains of the famous Temple of Artemis, the Great Theatre and the Library of Celsus.
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Underground areas, such as the vaulted cellars of the Palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian in Split, Croatia, would be hard hit by the rising sea levels caused by climate change.
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Countries facing economic or social disturbances might find it difficult to allocate resources to protect world treasures such as Istanbul's famous Hagia Sofia in Istanbul, Turkey.
But Markham concedes that it might not be possible to protect every site, particularly in less developed parts of the world.
While Markham is optimistic that heritage site managers are considering how to deal with climate change, he is not convinced that national governments are taking the actions needed to slow it down.
With climate change it always comes back to meeting the Paris Agreement goal — that is limiting global warming to significantly less than two degrees, he said.
“We’re not on track to do that right now unfortunately,” Markham added.
“Without meeting the Paris Agreement we are going to lose a lot of World Heritage sites.”