More Studies – Sea Level Rising Faster than Thought

May 13, 2015

Posted by greenman3610
Filed in Crock of the Week

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4 Responses to “More Studies – Sea Level Rising Faster than Thought”

neilrieck Says:

May 14, 2015 at 5:42 am
When my wife and I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” back in 2006 we already shared many of the views of the presenter, Al Gore, but thought he was probably wrong about his graphic projections showing 10-20% of Florida being underwater so soon (I never believed projections of 3 meters or 10-feet). Nine years later it turns out that Gore’s view was slightly more correct than mine. Ocean levels rose ~ 2 mm per year between 1900 and 2000 which accounts for an average rise of 20 cm (8 inches). Around 2003 scientists noticed the rate increase to ~ 3 mm per year and now (2015) it appears to have reached ~ 4 mm year. Using this last number to project forward, we can see that ocean levels will rise another 40 cm (16 inches) in the next century at the very minimum. Now we all know this discussion only involves height; but beaches are really right-angle triangles which means a small rise in height translates into a much larger horizontal movement depending on the smallness of the angle. Politicians will probably continue to ignore tidal and storm surges from Texas through to Florida but will they finally act when Washington is repeated flooded? Let’s wait and see. Churchill was fond of saying “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else”. Let’s hope they act in time.

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- Paul Whyte Says:
  
  May 14, 2015 at 7:47 am
  Neilrieck I agree with you about the next 30 to 40 years with sea level rises that you mentioned. What you have not mentioned is the rise after that period is over and we move into the collapse period of the great ice sheets in west Antarctica and Greenland and also it seems the least stable of the East Antarctica that were thought of as stable.
  
  If you look at the longer time period models you see 1 metre sea level rises per 20 years for the next 200 to 400 years depending on how well well/quickly we bring CO2 back down to below 350 ppm.
  
  If you think 200 years into the future our dearest offspring will have a zero chance of an advanced life like we do now, due primarily our western world decisions to vacillate in the case of profound denial of basic science by industries that stand to loose a lot of money. By a loss of money I mean trillions.
  The fossil fuel industries are fighting for their future by making all our offsprings future locked into an equivalent of a dark age that will last for over 10,000 thousand years. The fossil fuel industries make the vandals that sacked Rome and led to a 1000 years of Christian civilisation reduced to war lords look sort of tame.
  Just think of 10,000 years with out advanced civilisation as our legacy. That is the vision we need to come to grips with not a few inches of sea level rises and beaches receding but 10s of metres and many km of loss of ocean frontage.
  All the worlds coastal cities lost to be precise. That is the issue.
  
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  - j4zonian Says:
    
    May 18, 2015 at 11:59 am
    You think our life is “advanced”? Everywhere I look I see horror and suffering, disconnection, unmoored drift and either panic or denial as the reaction; I see in every action and statement by humans the effects of the fear, rage, shame, and grief both conscious and un, caused by our life. At best, among those who have recovered enough to philosophically reject the mainstream anti-wisdom I see deep sadness, wistfulness and regret behind all the attempts to cover and ignore it. But while anyone can reject this insanity philosophically, no one can escape it physically, let alone psychologically. I see the horrific lifelong imprint of our denatured life on every person and institution. The rich have physical comfort, a very recent invention of industrial society, but they suffer just as much as the poor from this disease.
    
    Reverse the vertical axis of any peak oil graph and it becomes clear that this is no peak, this is a pit of despair and loneliness, and we need to thank Gaia we have the chance, at enormous effort both physically and emotionally, to climb out of it. It may even be in time to save humanity from the awful psychological effects of it becoming permanent, and save the rest of Earth’s beings from the horror of trying to survive on a planet with such a damaged and raging species.
    
    Physiologically, psychologically and in every other way we’re designed and adapted to live in close contact with nature, and our own nature, in small bands, being physical, and connecting deeply. It will probably take many generations if not millennia but the sooner we return to that the better for us and the biosphere, and we should do everything we can to set up systems of remedial sane-itizing in the meantime.
    
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redskylite Says:

May 14, 2015 at 6:00 am
Excellent interview by Amanda Lang on CBC, with a lot of content explained within the 7 mins 7 secs by John Englander a very worthy expert, and I wish such news coverage were shown on our national T.V.

He mentioned that the older technology of tidal gauges were being upgraded, to take into account things like land movement (the biggest variation). Just been reading news from the National Oceanography Centre, who have just been funded to upgrade the South Atlantic network.

“The GPS sensors will allow scientists to distinguish changes in absolute sea level from changes in land level, both of which are contained in tide gauge records. Vertical land movement can be caused by sediment compaction, groundwater extraction, glacial rebound or tectonic processes.”

http://noc.ac.uk/news/30-years-measuring-sea-level-south-atlantic

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