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NASA Scientists Paint Stark Picture of Accelerating Sea Level Rise
A NASA panel yesterday announced widely reported finding that global sea levels have risen about three inches since 1992, and that these levels are expected to keep rising as much as several more feet over the next century -- on the upper end of model-based predictions that have been made so far. From the Sydney Morning Herald piece linked above: NASA says Greenland has lost an average of 303 gigatons [of ice] yearly for the past decade. Since it takes 360 gigatons to raise sea level by a millimetre, that would suggest Greenland has done this about eight times over just in the last 10 years or so.
"People need to be prepared for sea level rise," said Joshua Willis, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "It's not going to stop."
I can tell from the comments most of you don't live near the ocean. Down here in South Florida it's already making an impact. There are storm drains that flow water during high tide up and down the coast and boat docks underwater. Miami is worse. Hallendale Beach has five of their seven fresh water pumps closed because of salt water intrusion.
The real problem that no one is talking about is what happens when Miami gets nailed by a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane? We're going to have boats washing up on I-95. Do we spend the money to rebuild Miami just to have it flood 40 years later? Or when it gets nailed by another hurricane?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"bit of land" = the displacement of hundreds of millions of people across the globe.
AKA your kids get to grow up in permanent refugee crisis world.
And you know what ? I am a fool to care about this, because I'll be dead before shit gets really real. Hope you leave your kids some money!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Oh, it will be noticed.
A one foot rise in sea level is going to create a lot more shallow water basins and tidal flat areas. All that increase in surface area is going to increase evaporation rates. That will result in an increase in atmospheric water vapor, which is one of the more potent greenhouse gases, which introduces a new positive feedback to global warming.
But in turn the increased atmospheric water vapor will, under some conditions, create an increase in clouds, which will lower the insolation of the land and ocean below them and tend to counter global warming. Since evaporation and cloud formation will be regional, there will be a stronger thermal differential between regions, which will make severe weather incidents more frequent and more intense.
People are going to be displaced by storm damage more than by the simple rise in sea level. If every year 3 to 5 port cities on the East Coast of the USA were hit by an incident on the level of Hurricane Katrina, what would that permanent stream of refugees look like? How could even the wealthiest nation keep up the infrastructure repairs needed to keep those cities functional?
No one knows how to model this, so there can be no scientific talk about it yet. All we can know is that somewhere along the way as the seas rise to 21 feet above their current level, these kinds of effects are going to occur. I think the flooding that will happen with a one foot rise will be enough to change the Earth's weather engine. I may be off by a few feet... or by a few inches. We'll have to wait and see.
Will