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Five Solomon Islands Disappear Into The Pacific Ocean As A Result Of Climate Change (go.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Climate change strikes again. A paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters says five of the Solomon Islands have completely submerged underwater due to man-made climate change, and six more have experienced a dramatic reduction in shoreline. The Solomon Islands has a population of a little more than 500,000 people, many of whom have been adversely affected by rising sea levels in recent years. NASA scientist James Hansen estimated that seas could rise by seven meters within the next century. In 2014, Losing Ground issued a report that shows how large areas of the Louisiana coastline are being lost to rising sea levels. A 2011 study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey determined that the state's wetlands were being lost at a rate of "a football field per hour." Michael Edison Hayden writes from ABC News, "The Solomon Islands provides a preview of how sea-level rise could affect other coastal communities in the coming years, according to the study, largely because the speed which erosion is taking place has been accelerated by a "synergistic interaction" with the waves that surround it.
The post you replied to is addressing claims that AGW-induced sea level rise is already causing significant damage, which is clearly bogus. One of the reasons I am sceptical of the claims of sea level doom, is the fact that its prophets seem incapable of distinguishing clearly between predictions about the future, and present reality.
That is not a joke: it's a real, peer reviewed scientific paper.
And there are other "real, peer reviewed scientific paper"s that say the number will be more like 2 meters. Almost as if the science is not settled...
Moreover, all of the catastrophic sea level prophecies depend upon the larger anthropogenic global warming theory, which has several problems:
1) It's predictive record is very poor; numerous specific claims from prominent individuals and organizations have already been falsified by the passage of time. We have already overshot some of the worst-case CO2 emission predictions from early in the movement, and yet we have also undershot some of the best-case temperature predictions, suggesting that the climate's sensitivity to additional CO2 is far lower than claimed. The AGW movement has quietly adjusted their predicted temperature rise downward quite substantially, while still maintaining that the situation is as dangerous as ever.
2) The models are extremely vague, imprecise, and mutually contradictory. The only specific thing they seem to agree on, is that we're doomed. :eyeroll:
3) The data with which the models are calibrated is of very low quality; the error bars are huge on almost everything, especially prior to about 1990 (or 2000?) when modern sensor networks started coming online. Definitive claims are frequently made about time periods for which we have no solid data at all, and the past data that we do have is constantly being "adjusted" and "corrected" - conveniently, usually in a direction that magnifies any upward temperature trends.
4) We've already passed several of the drop-dead dates set by the AGW prophets - the "If you don't act by XXXX, it will be too late!" dates. But of course they just set new ones and pretend like the last round never happened...
(Yes, there are sources for all of the above. But it's exhausting to compile all the links to the standards required by internet critics, so I'm not going to do it right now. Maybe later if someone asks, but really - it's not that hard to Google it if you really care - you just have to be willing to read the heretical websites of the dreaded "climate deniers" like WattsUpWithThat.com, who will in turn link you back to the relevant government, peer-reviewed, and mainstream media sources if you look hard enough.)
Finally, even if it really happens, a seven meter sea level rise over the course of a century or so obviously will not "doom" us. The vast majority of land on Earth is at a much higher elevation than that. Some specific areas (like Florida) would be hit pretty hard, but the predicted rise is still slow enough to give people plenty of time to relocate further inland/uphill if required. It would be expensive - but so would giving up all fossil fuels.