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Sea Level Rise Can't Be Stopped
riverat1 writes "Sea level rise won't stop for several hundred years even if we reverse global warming, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change. As warmer water is mixed down into the oceans, it causes thermal expansion of the water. Under the best emissions scenario, the expected rise is 14.2 cm by 2100; under the worst, 32.2 cm from thermal expansion alone. Any water pumped from aquifers or glacial/ice sheet melt is added to that."
Because, of course, the laws of nature obey your political ideology.
Here's news, moron, the Universe doesn't give a fuck about Liberal vs. Conservative, Socialist vs. Capitalist. It does not fucking care. If pumping millions of years of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere in the space of two centuries is going to cause serious climactic changes, it is absolutely fucking irrelevant who you fucking vote for, or whether you masturbate to Vladimir Lenin or Ayn Rand.
Fucking hell, you ideological fanatics are a tiresome, mentally handicapped lot. Don't like evolution because you think it falsifies your religion. Don't like acid rain or climate change because it means there are consequences to wide-scale and uncontrolled industrial activity. Don't like regulations because it kills your particular get-rich-quick-while-fucking-the-economy scheme.
Is there any part of you at all that isn't a selfish, greedy piece of stupidity? Is there any part of you that gives the least little fuck for anyone other than yourself? Or are you really the vile repugnant sociopathic troll you appear?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now that there is nothing we can do about it, the shills can stop pretending it isnâ(TM)t happening.
Already, Exxon has stated the obvious - burning fossil fuels is warming the planet by increasing the co2 level; however had to mute it with a statement that we can handle the change.
I suppose a whiff of honesty is better than before.
Removing the CO2 is damn near impractical. However, even if we did it, it wouldn't be enough.
Any warming (should it exist) eventually is likely to cause two other effects...
1. an increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (which is currently responsible for about 50% of the greenhouse effect compared to 20% for CO2).
2. an increase in methane clathrate melting in the permafrost and ocean releasing large quantities of methane into our atmosphere. Methane is ~70x a potent a greenhouse gas as CO2 (but currently only accounts for about 7% of greenhouse effect)
Many speculate that if warming actually happens, these two effects could effectively cause run-away global warming. That's why people are thinking about how to block the heating from the sun (e.g., spraying particles in the air), not just sequestering carbon or just living with the consequences of warming. It's probably too late to just think about CO2. That ship has probably sailed...
32.2cm is the mean sea level rise. If you picture the ocean as one gigantic seesaw, it's how much the midpoint rises by, not the endpoints. The lever on either side of this midpoint is around 3200 km long. I will leave you to figure out the total area of any given slice your side of the midpoint - and what will happen to that during spring tide. Sure, low tide might actually be lower as a result, but I'm thinking that any land much below 32m below current sea levels will be in real trouble.
That's ignoring the ocean currents. Those help take hot water away from the Gulf of Mexico, so lose/weaken them and you get longer, more severe hurricanes.
And this is still ignoring the fact that much of the SE is reclaimed swamp. Water table shoots up, even if only 32cm, and you WILL lose houses nominally on dry land because they're not designed for that. You'll also lose your storm drains and sewage systems, so the survivors can expect massive outbreaks of cholera. If there are any survivors - the road system there basically uses sand as a foundation, so you WILL lose most of your road network and that means no possibility of evacuation when the hurricanes arrive. New Orleans had substantially evacuated before Katrina, you won't be able to. With South Carolina in the same boat - literally, there also will be far fewer places to evacuate to.
By 2112, everything from Florida to the middle of North Carolina will be an uninhabited, uninhabitable lost land, barren of all life. Nothing will survive there.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The Netherlands seem to be doing just fine below sea level. It might cause some economic harm, but it's not going to be a tragedy. Also, most low-lying islands are coral islands that follow sea level.
Do you have a clue how expensive the water management system in the Netherlands has been? Do you realize that the Netherlands is tiny compared with the areas under threat from sea level rise in the US alone? Hell, it's tiny even compared with Florida. Do you realize that duplicating the Dutch diking system for American coastal areas would likely bankrupt the country? Not to mention how future sea level rise will make it even more difficult for even the Netherlands to maintain the integrity of their diking system.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
The above statement is basically true. If you broke up the entire Greenland ice sheet, the rise in sea level would be catastrophic. Mr. Gore does not say this will happen in the next 100 years. It is a conditional statement. If something happens, then something else will happen. The time scale is not certain, though given recent trends in melting, three feet by 2100 is not unlikely. A basic search of recent literature will support this.
A perfect example of how to be misleading without actually lying.
As opposed to the original parent post I responded to:
So the "twenty feet by 2100" thing is gone now then is it Mr. Gore, cause, gosh, that sure sold a lot of movies books and carbon taxes.
Which is an example of being misleading while actually lying
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)