The hour of news from Ecuador, its provinces and the world

Europa Press

A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Oregon shows that the communication infrastructure could be submerged by raising the sea level in just 15 years, according to lead author of the study, Paul Barford, a computer professor in Wisconsin-Madison. (See also: Sea level rise will cost $ 14 billion a year in 2100)

"Most of the damage that will be done in the next 100 years will happen sooner rather than later," says Barford, an authority in the "physical Internet": buried fiber optic cables, data centers, traffic exchanges and endpoints that are the nerve centers, arteries and centers of the vast network global information. "It surprised us, we were expecting 50 years to plan it, we are not 50 years old."

The study, conducted with former student Barford Ramakrishnan Durairajan, now from the University of Oregon, and Carol Barford, director of the UW-Madison Center for Sustainability and Global Environment , is the first badessment of climate change risk on the Internet.

It suggests that by 2033, more than 6,000 kilometers of buried optical fiber ducts will be under water and more than 1,100 traffic points will be surrounded by water. According to the report, the most vulnerable US cities are New York, Miami and Seattle, but the effects will not be confined to these areas and will spread over the Internet, says Barford, which could disrupt global communications.

The peer-reviewed study combined data from the Internet Atlas, a comprehensive global map of the physical structure of the Internet and incursion projections at the level of the Sea of ​​the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The study only evaluated the risk for infrastructure in the United States.

Much of this infrastructure is buried and follows long-standing footprints, usually parallel to roads and coasts, says Barford. . "When it was built 20-25 years ago, we did not think about climate change."

Many of the risky pipelines are already near sea level and only increase slightly due to of melting polar ice and thermal expansion as the climate warms up to expose fiber cables buried in seawater. Signs of future problems can be seen, according to Barford, in the catastrophic storms and flood tides that accompanied hurricanes Sandy and Katrina.

Buried optical fiber cables are designed to withstand water, but unlike marine cables that carry data from one continent to another under the ocean, they are not waterproof.

The risk to the physical Internet, says Barford, is coupled with the large centers of population that exist on the coast, which also tend to be the same places where transoceanic marine cables that support global communication networks reach the earth. "All landing points will be under water in a short time," he says.

In addition, much of the data that travels over the Internet tends to converge on a small number of fiber optic wires that lead to population centers like New York, one of the most vulnerable cities identified in the # 39; study.

The impact of attenuation, like dikes, according to the study, is difficult to predict. "The first instinct will be to harden the infrastructure," says Barford. "But keeping the sea at bay is difficult, we can probably buy some time, but in the long run it will not be effective."

In addition to badyzing the risk for local and long-distance infrastructure in the country's coastal areas, the study examined the risk for the buried badets of individual Internet service providers. He discovered that CenturyLink, Inteliquent and AT & T networks are the most at risk.