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25 Years of Satellite Data Shows Global Warming Is Accelerating Sea Level Rise (usnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite research shows. At the current rate, the world's oceans on average will be at least 2 feet (61 centimeters) higher by the end of the century compared to today, according to researchers who published in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Sea level rise is caused by warming of the ocean and melting from glaciers and ice sheets. The research, based on 25 years of satellite data, shows that pace has quickened, mainly from the melting of massive ice sheets. It confirms scientists' computer simulations and is in line with predictions from the United Nations, which releases regular climate change reports. Of the 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) of sea level rise in the past quarter century, about 55 percent is from warmer water expanding, and the rest is from melting ice. But the process is accelerating, and more than three-quarters of that acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows.
Clearly, this is yet more evidence that the whole thing is just a massive Chinese time travelling zombie conspiracy! They've teamed with the Knights Templar and the Masons to litter the sea floor with cheap, Chinese hair dryers, which are blowing on the ice and melting it! And the fairies, loyal to the Maoist regime, are taking our good western made CO2 from the atmosphere and replacing it with cheap Chinese made CO2! Wake up sheeple!
Donald Trump claims global warming is a myth... and yet he's building sea walls for his golf resort in Ireland to protect it against the sea level rising!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
What shocking news. 82 years from now things will be 0.05% worse than we previously doomsaid. I'd be way more scared if Slashdot hadn't run an article only last week about how Tuvalu, the first island "victim" of climate change, is actually RISING. So that's another prediction down the drain. And considering you can't get it right with predictions on a 10 year scale. pardon me if I don't clench my ass over your pie in the sky random-yet-always-apocalyptic vagaries for a century from now.
Well Iâ(TM)m sure glad random anonymous coward is here to point out how all the scientists are wrong. Thank god for the internet!
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Satellites? Show me the guy with a beard, surrounded by pairs of animals, and building a big wood boat. Hell, it's not even raining yet.
I don't (can't afford to) live that close to an ocean, you insensitive clod.
(But I'm thinking that an investment in property on Lake Superior or Hudson Bay may pay off as the next French Riviera. Kashechewan=Monaco?)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Seriously. The only way to stop the CO2 is to have ALL NATIONS STOP ADDING COAL and back off rather quickly. This is ESP TRUE for China. Yet, there will be many here (including a chinese troll that follows me) that will actually DEFEND China's adding 750+ GW of new coal plants over the next 11 years. And that is just CHINA. That does not include the large number of extra coal going in, nor does it include the massive number of ICE vehicles being sold.
If ppl want to stop this, then ALL NATIONS MUST STOP. Not just 1 or 2.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ha! That's what Job said!
Okay, but will this rise affect me in my lifetime, or can I safely ignore it and pass this problem off to the next generation like I plan on doing with the national debt?
The key difference between the two is that the national debt is little more than a pattern of bits on some spinning disks (as the GOP seems to have suddenly realized), whereas the rising sea levels are a serious physical threat (which they have unfortunately not yet realized).
Going by your own link, the rate of change is increasing. This is called acceleration.#youdenyyouself
Okay, but will this rise affect me in my lifetime, or can I safely ignore it and pass this problem off to the next generation like I plan on doing with the national debt?
Because people generally like living above water. Because there are existing places that will become untenable to maintain and/or unsafe with higher water levels and fixing that doesn't seem like a lot of fun.
There are are a whole lot more 'becauses' to add.
Because arable regions may shift faster than the plants can evolve to grow in them.
Because mass migration will cause significant upheaval and displacement of human society.
...and so on... and finally:
Because when the human race is confronted with a lack of something, it goes to war over it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
My dear friend, your moniker should be PoeRatzo.
Well played.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Donald Trump claims global warming is a myth... and yet he's building sea walls for his golf resort in Ireland to protect it against the sea level rising!
He doesn't say it's a myth, he says it's a hoax.
He agrees that the climate is changing, but believes that it's not due to man-made changes in the environment.
Odd that you didn't read the article you are posting. It explains that changes in climate patterns are the cause....
I don't know if you noticed that quite a bit of NYC was underwater not too long ago. This will become more frequent, to the point that part of the infrastructure fails.
Define "quite a bit". NYC is pretty large.
As I recall during a massive storm there was some flooding in lower Manhattan, which is between the Hudson and the East rivers. Also there was some flooding on the southern shore of Long Island and the Jersey shore.
Did anyone see this article in Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
It says the "worst case scenario" is preposterous.
"For example, the most extreme worst-case storyline assumes that by 2100 coal would grow to 94 percent of the world energy supply. In 2015, that figure was about 28 percent."
"One big problem with the amount of coal burning assumed by RCP8.5 is that there’s probably not enough extractable coal to make the scenario possible. “We don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Justin Ritchie, lead author of the University of British Columbia study and a Ph.D. candidate. “That’s extremely unlikely and also inconsistent with every year since the late 19th century.”
I'll admit... I'm not an actual climentoligist, but has anybody thought about maybe just making a bunch of ice and hauling it down to Antarctica? I mean if its getting warm, throw some ice on it instead of sitting around poking and measuring it.
It's pretty clear you aren't a climatologist when you can't even spell the word, but it's also clear you aren't a scientist or an engineer. The laws of thermodynamics, let alone the sheer magnitude of the logistical/technological problem, mean that making ice for Antarctica is a non-starter. You need to consume energy in order to move energy around.
Better to stop the Sun's energy from being trapped by greenhouse gasses, and harvesting the same energy (via wind and solar) for our needs, rather than using carbon-based fuels. But if you want to make ice for Antarctica with renewables, by all means knock yourself out.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
no, because he's not a tiny-brained superstitious moron.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Citation. This isn't a new finding, it confirms previous work.
Let me know when other "religions" start basing their ideology (or their critiques) on multiple peer-reviewed studies instead of faith.
You're right. WHY ARE THEY HIDING THE SATELLITE DATA FROM 100 YEARS AGO? HUH?
Checkmate, libs.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Because arable regions may shift faster than the plants can evolve to grow in them.
Right ... that's why there aren't any European plants growing in the Americas. Because we can't just go ahead and plant them; no, they have to evolve first.
Because mass migration will cause significant upheaval and displacement of human society. ...and so on... and finally:
Because when the human race is confronted with a lack of something, it goes to war over it.
So ... basically a repeat of 2017?
Quelle horreur.
Slashdot has ads?
Did you get lost and stumble onto this site while looking for AOL?
Now! I am a true believer in climate change and for the most part man caused!
;)
Here is my question, When is anyone, a group, a corporation, a government? Going to propose how the human race takes, Over Control of our Planets Climate? And release all the projected Cultural, Economic, Personal/Business/Government Costs, who will profit along with the social ramifications.
I mean it seems the goal here is to save individuals/cities/ports/countries at sea level from seeing any environmental impact or the need to move. And of course save humanity as a whole. And I have an interest in that!
I want to see workable solutions, not more and more chicken little predictions.
First, puts on flame suit
Just my 2 cents
Modding this guy "troll" when he simply stated some demonstrable facts is not kosher, folks.
"I don't like what you said" does not equal "troll".
Then you're an idiot. I'm not talking about individuals. This is government debt, and the government itself defines the meaning of those bits arbitrarily.
All across the political spectrum, the American people seem to be convinced that they are entitled to more government services than they are willing to explicitly pay for. If the current "pyramid scheme" strategy ever stops working, there are plenty of other avenues the government can use to simply redefine or restrict what that debt value means.
Meanwhile, the actual physical sea level just keeps rising. Ironically, if the worst case scenarios do pan out, the government would probably take on scores of trillions of dollars in additional debt in futile attempts at keeping our coastal cities habitable.
Actually significantly faster, 1930-1950. Not "just as fast".
Manhattan has significantly INCREASED in land area, pretty steadily, over the last 150 years.
But most if not all of that was due to human activity, so there is no way to make a valid comparison.
And NYC's elevation is 10m. So it will take 5000 years or so for it to be inundated.
Yeah, no. For one thing the outcrop of Manhattan Schist in the middle of Central Park is not "NYC", and for another a large part of lower Manhattan*, western Brooklyn, and northern Queens was underwater during Hurricane Sandy which had a surge of about 13 feet (4m). Due to rebound of the continental plate since the last glaciation the city is already sinking at a rate of about 1 foot per century, and most of the gravity driven sewers were built more than 100 or 200 years ago when sea level was lower. Most of the subway entrances are staircases down from street level.
NYC has some serious problems. Maybe not as bad as Miami, but there's more infrastructure to deal with.
Stop spreading lies.
* just maybe the financial district has some huge impact on the national GDP, even if it is shut down for one day?
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
I just read the abstract. As I understand it, they have 25 data years of very noisy data. Based on this data, they have deduced a quadratic equation (think: upward-curving parabola). They then state: "simple extrapolation of the quadratic implies global mean sea level could rise 65 ± 12 cm by 2100".
Of course, extrapolation of a quadratic leads to massive increases in the Y-value. Any kid doing 9th grade geometry learns that. The question is: Why should we believe that this quadratic equation - derived from so few data points - is accurate, and wil continue unabated into the future?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I mean if a pyroman set a barn is on fire, and a denier pretend the warmth is due to hot summer time the other pretend barn on fire is a natural occurrence, does it matter ? They are both wrong, and in the end you gotta stop the fire anyway.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
There is a gran of truth in what he says. The grain of truth is that shifting climate will make arable terrain less arable, and will open to potential moderate climate terrain which was not arable or is poor. So shifting climate may actually reduce globally the amount of field which are good for agriculture. Nothing to do with evolution.... Just with simply top earth quality for what we currently grow. As for your kip about a repeat of 2017: actually 2017 and the last 3 or 4 decade are decades where there was the LEAST amount of war, compared to last centuries... As for population upheaval , the same can be said qualitatively. 2017 forced mirgation is nothing to compare if whole frigging region decide to go north or south because their agriculture is in the shitter , in say 75 or 100 years.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yes, because you can just up and replace entire ecosystems on a moment's notice with new flora and fauna.
Because arable regions may shift faster than the plants can evolve to grow in them.
Right ... that's why there aren't any European plants growing in the Americas. Because we can't just go ahead and plant them; no, they have to evolve first.
Just because some plants do well in a non-native habitat it doesn't not follow that most plants (particularly crops) can effectively adapt to a very different climate, or equivalent farmland can be found in another region.
Because mass migration will cause significant upheaval and displacement of human society. ...and so on... and finally:
Because when the human race is confronted with a lack of something, it goes to war over it.
So ... basically a repeat of 2017?
Quelle horreur.
Americans experienced a mild increase in Muslim migration and a drug epidemic and elected a demagogue Trump, one of the major riots leading up to the French Revolution was caused by a flour shortage, German's experienced massive reparations after WWI and elected Hitler, Russians got hammered in WWI and had the October Revolution, etc, etc.
In fact, high food prices were one of the causes of the Arab Spring, and the Arab Spring combined with the Iraq War caused the migrant crisis in Europe which is another factor that elected Trump and scared Britain out of the EU. And the Arab Spring looks a lot like the mass migrations you'll see when Climate Change starts to kick in (and the equivalent South American migration into the US).
It's not a complex formula. When populations are stressed they lash out, they either riot and or elect leaders who raise a ruckus on their behalf. And climate change causes a lot of stress.
I stole this Sig
Economic rules are not the same as physical laws. Physical laws exist regardless you believe in them. Economic rules are human rules. They can be changed. For example you can lower taxes for the rich or deprive people of healthcare. You can even make up rules to limit the ability what you can dobwithnyour money. And even money itself is just a number or a piece if paper. Its value is based in an agreement. Look I have billions of Reichsmark in my attic. Unfortunately, you cannot buy anything with it. You can also see the artificially of value of currency in context of bitcoin.
Climate does not change during seasons, because climate is the weather average over 30 years. Global warming is defined by the change if the global temperature. While weather is specfic to you region. For example the US had a cold and snow rich winter and we in Europe had a lot if rain and no snow. So in our region it was exceptionally warm weather while you had snow rich weather.
I thought it was the Chinese.
How's it different? Whether the planet is done by the time I am dead and don't give a fuck or whether the economy is done by the the time I'm dead and don't give a fuck ... care to explain the difference?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You know, it would be funnier if there weren't idiots that actually argue like this...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Good point about the Arab Spring, but notice, nobody can predict which stresses will occur and whether they will lead to breakdown, strain, or innovation, or some combination of all three. And multiply that by a million for all the possible scenarios.
Whilst care and compassion are very worthy moral developments, this does not mean we can predict the unpredictable. Climate change is unfortunately just one of the many unpredictable things. The “science” has faked its certainty over this, and latches onto tiny trends to pretend it understands the whole system. It is not denialism to point out trumped up claims.
Postmodern thought is party to blame, in that it does not think facts matter, all that matters is the narrative and dismantling the systems of oppression, so in environmental movements there’s often people who don’t care whether carbon is a problem, they only care that everyone be made to believe it is a problem, and use “science” as the narrative.
Meanwhile clouds are still a huge area of uncertainty. They just are.
But yes please let’s encourage humanity towards more care and compassion, regardless of situations. Science is NOT ethics.
I'd argue but you're having so much fun beating your straw man it seems a bit cruel to stop you.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Quite simply, implementing enough renewable energy+storage for the planet is logistically impossible.
Wrong. It's politically impossible.
And, even if we DID, we're supposedly beyond The Point Of No Return already.
Wrong again. We may still be able to turn this around, nobody actually knows. The sooner we start actually trying, the more likely it is that the species will continue without having to go all morlock.
So...what then?
We've literally been telling you for decades. Don't pretend you don't know. That's disingenuous douchebaggery.
And the only way to implement it sanely is with the backing of nuclear power on a level we currently just do not see at the moment.
There's nothing sane about selling out the future for the present. That's how we got where we are now. Greenhouse gas was a settled science in the 1800s, and you're still ignoring it.
Plant trees. Switch to regenerative agriculture. Switch to carbon-negative biofuel. Switch to bioplastics. Install solar. Install wind. Make less unnecessary shit. Insulate houses more. We've been explaining this to you for decades, you've been ignoring it and saying "what do we do?" Well, we told you already. Your ignorance is willful. Stop pretending we haven't given you literally all of the answers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1- the old fucks in power have money to mitigate effects upon *them* so they don't care
2- the old fucks in power will not be around to suffer any downstream effects of this so they don't care
Mitigate, yes. Not suffer? No. They will suffer, too. The world will become a crappier place, and they live here.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The storm surge entering Manhattan was caused by the elimination of buffer coast line which prevents water from coming in. Think about marshlands, etc. Once you get rid of those, nothing is going to stop the water. Climate change in this case isn't going to make a difference.
Global Warming deniers sure love to be Anonymous Cowards when they're blathering their anti-science bullshit.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Ok, this is a question I can answer. Since you are clearly a narcissist/sociopath, at best, let's focus on you.
Actually, I used to care. Until I noticed that I'm pretty much the only one left and, sorry to say it, I don't feel entitled to save the planet against the collective will of the rest on it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The bugs too, are surviving winter. The most ardent climate change denying, conspiracy theory believing, Iowa farmer sees the forsythia blooming in February, tulips emerging in March, crocus in December... Some fields naturalized by daffodils and tulips are going the other way. The bulbs rotting away instead of emerging. These bulbs need six weeks of continuous freezing for them to "sense" the coming and going of winter. Without the frost, they dont emerge and they rot in spring rains.
One of the most productive agricultural belt is protected by annual frost. It has no natural defense against many of the deleterious organisms. All it takes is one fungus, one virus, one weed to afflict the Idaho potato crop or the corn or wheat... By the time we identify and mitigate the threat we would have lost two or even three years of loss of agricultural productivity. Affluent USA will suck the products from rest of the world, prices will shoot up beyond belief. Poor countries with unstable regimes will see societal collapse, mass migrations and refugees...
These consequences are far more dire, far more urgent than sea level rise. Sea level rise is important it will lead to very serious climate changes. But that is very indirect and direct cause - effect relations difficult to deduce, difficult to prove, difficult to explain to public.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
25 years of data? Why not 26 years of data?
Because the earliest data set came from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite altimetry mission, which launched in 1992, and the paper was received for review in 2017. 2017-1996 = 25 years.
Paper under discussion: http://www.pnas.org/content/ea...
The scientists were unable to use satellite data taken before the satellite launched because that data does not exist.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
25 years of data? Why not 26 years of data?
I'll believe you the moment the faggots in San Francisco drown.
No, because TOPEX/Poseidon was launched into orbit in August 1992. Good luck getting data from it from before it was operational.
Wow another windbourne clone. So tell us genius, how many pieces do we need to cut China into to have each piece have the population as Australia? How about America? Do you think the 4 new North South East and West China's pollution will be the same as all 4 are now added together? But by the magic of winbourne 'thinking' there will be less CO2, because all those new countries will be polluting less than America.
It is clear as day that my post was a lighthearted joke. You kind sir, concern me.
And there's no way those same currents could have affected the previous measurements we used to declare sea level was rising. I mean, there's no way they could have been eroding for some period and we thought it was the sea level rising. Climate only works one way!
That's why satellite altimetry measurements-- what the article being discussed here is about-- are important. You can measure the entire globe, not just the places that have tide gauges, and you can separate out the local effects from the sea level rise.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
No. It shows a more rapid rise in the last couple of decades, but it does not show an acceleration overall. If you can cherry-pick a 20-25 year period, so can I.
Just for reference, the 25 years of data was not cherry picked. The article being discussed analyzed satellite altimetry data, and the first of the satellite altimetry missions being discussed was TOPEX/Poseidon, which started giving data 25 years ago. 25 years is all the data that exists.
When they analyze all the data that exists, that's the opposite of cherry picking.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Fission could do that, easily. We've shown them how to do fission adequately. Maybe they could teach the rest of us how to do it well.
Actually, no. If we just use fission, we run out of uranium in a hundred years or so-- it's not a long-term solution. We need fission plus breeder reactors, or else a switch to a thorium-based fuel cycle.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"Right ... that's why there aren't any European plants growing in the Americas. Because we can't just go ahead and plant them; no, they have to evolve first."
So your argument is that because some plants can grow in different regions of the world, every plant can grow in different regions of the world? So like temperature, precipitation, etc. can have no effect because you can grow lettuce in both England and California. That's...brilliant.
You're forgetting to mention the lizard people who control the Club of Rome. And, of course, Soros' ninjas.
Economic rules are not the same as physical laws. Physical laws exist regardless you believe in them. Economic rules are human rules. They can be changed. For example you can lower taxes for the rich or deprive people of healthcare.
This is the economics equivalent of "look, I can make a snowball, so global warming isn't real". The fact that you were moded +5 "insightful" is truly frightening.
Since there were no SUVs or coal plants back then, I'm laying the blame on Native American campfires.
Have gnu, will travel.
The government can remove the national debt by inflating the currency or by decree. There's no way to undo the changes to the environment.
There's no way to undo the changes to the environment.
That's a pretty stupid thing to say, even for a 7th grader.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
But we are suppose to be underwater now if you believed what we were told in 2000. You can only cry "the sky is falling!" so many times until people stop believing you. Besides, even if this is 100% true, high polluting countries like China with 1/5th of the world's population are the countries that need to do something about it. US makes up 4% of the world's population, even if those 4% made drastic changes to save the environment it would not help if the other 96% does nothing.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
The rules of supply and demand and how they scale into an economic system ultimately are related to the physical constraints of that supply and demand.
China already emits more CO2 than America. And the climate, if it cares at all, cares about total emissions not per capita emissions
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Climate is a general term. Long range climate, as you say, about a 30 year average. It is also accurate to say the local climate here is Aug is the hottest driest month, Dec is the wettest and Jan is the coldest.
The IPC definition,
Note climate can be measured from months to aeons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Reading through it, I see a few things (and I saw them before I posted):
1. No mention of the fit; the paper I linked shows a r^2 value of 0.94; what is it for their fit?
2. Their conclusions are based upon subtracting estimated effects from non-CO2 based changes, and from estimates about how much ice there is. Meaning they are drawing conclusions accurate to 0.1mm, based upon several orders-of-magnitude higher estimates. Not good, statistically
3. They ignore tide-gauge corrections for altitude, on the basis that tidal gauges are too sensitive to decadal changes. They even mention that doing so increases the acceleration; if they left the tide-gauge corrections in, the acceleration would be lower.
4. There are several other papers (in the page to which I linked) which shows just the opposite of what is happening here, and it uses tidal gauges, satellite, or both for the results. In all cases, sea level changes are decelerating on a decadal basis. So at best this is a result that runs counter to many others, meaning "we're not sure".
So, does realizing there are errors in this study - which runs counter to many other studies - make me a denialist? I'd say it makes me a realist. Which can be offensive to people who take AGW as a religious basis for their life...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
True. However, in context of global warming or climate change the term climate used originates from science. Therefore, the wider definition of climate does not apply. However, I can understand that there is some confusion based on the difference between both the scientific definition and the laymen term used by the public.
Okay, but will this rise affect me in my lifetime, or can I safely ignore it and pass this problem off to the next generation like I plan on doing with the national debt?
The key difference between the two is that the national debt is little more than a pattern of bits on some spinning disks (as the GOP seems to have suddenly realized), whereas the rising sea levels are a serious physical threat (which they have unfortunately not yet realized).
Both are very real, and serious. Roughly the same level of real and serious, and even the same kind of real and serious, mostly, since rising sea levels will primarily be an economic catastrophe, not generally a threat to life and limb (with the exception of a few people who refuse to get out of the path of storms).
The representation of the national debt is little more than patterns of bits, but the debts those bits represent are extremely real, not least to the people to whom the money is owed, and who will be very unhappy if they're suddenly discarded, or inflated away. Who are those people? Well, they fall into two main categories: Americans and foreigners. Americans are owed most of it, and the majority of American-held debt consists of the retirement savings of individual Americans. A little under 20% of it is owed to Social Security.
So if the US decides to renege on its debt, lots of retirees and those who are getting close to retire are going to be seriously screwed. Even those who have their 401k accounts invested in non-government securities are going to get shafted when lots of institutional investors get shafted and the resulting stock market tumble. If you're thinking that the US can just invent a bunch more bits to feed and house and care for all of the retirees (including many who saved their whole lives and are seriously pissed that their government just screwed them), you create a whole new set of problems. I could go into them, but that's a subject for another post.
What about the 47% of national debt that is owed to foreigners? What would be the impact of telling them "Ha ha fooled you, suckers!"? Lots and lots of things. First, it would very likely trigger a global depression (which would hurt America). Second, it's not inconceivable that it could provoke a war, at a moment when, third, we'd lose the ability to borrow at non-insane rates. This, in turn, would also mean that either the flow of international goods into the US would cease, or we'd have to start selling lots of America in exchange for the foreign stuff we want to buy, since we have been and will for the foreseeable future run current account deficits (the net difference between imports and exports). Those current account deficits are in large part facilitated by the countries with current account surpluses, who are collecting large piles of dollars, loaning those dollars back to us.
In addition, Americans owe foreigners almost as much money as foreigners owe Americans. Refusing to make good on our debts to them will cause them to refuse to make good on their debts to us. So if the US government won't honor its obligations to foreign banks and investors, they won't honor their obligations to US banks and investors. Oops, there's Joe Sixpack's retirement taking it in the shorts yet again. Plus maybe his employer suddenly finding itself insolvent and laying him off.
There's a lot more, but the bottom line is that the US cannot simply decide that its debts don't matter. The result would be economic catastrophe... probably not terribly different from the economic catastrophe caused by trillions of dollars of prime real estate gradually becoming marine life habitat. Not because bits really matter, but because the obligations those bits represent, obligations to real people, who have made real plans based on the assumption that the debts will be made good, matter.
Money is not real. It's a fiction. But the goods, services and labor that money stands for and is used to trade are very
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Luckilly we have conspiracy theorist anonymous cowards to show those pesky scientists the truth
A conservative talking-point discredited a long time ago. The "hide the decline" was a reference to a well understood flaw in arctic treeline tree ring data where Carbon isotope ratios go out of whack sometime in the 1980s, roughly around the time of cheynobyl. The "hide the decline" is a reference to removing faulty data. Scientists cleaning out errors is a stupid reason to distrust scientists
A thing that doesnt actually happen.
Oh put a sock in it, crazy person.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The papers cited at my link are in peer reviewed journals. And TFA was about an increasing acceleration of sea level, not a decreasing acceleration as you now admit is happening. Your attitude is about as anti-science as can be. But that's pretty common around here for ACs, isn't it?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Satellites are causing global warming.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
Yes it cares about total emissions and not lines on a map. Cut China into 4 countries if you like. North China, East China, South China and West China. Nothing else needs to change, same people same pollution. Each new China though is now only producing half the level of the US. So how much are you going ask America to cut, now that it's the most polluting country?
Any way you look at it, Each person in America emit far more than a Chinese person. More than just about everyone in the world in fact.
Exactly what the supply-demand constraints are doesn't matter. The rules work just fine with artificial scarcity through copyright, which is not particularly related to physics.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
First, who told us we'd all be underwater? I don't remember reading that. Second, the US produces a lot of CO2, not much behind China, and it's probably easier to reduce CO2 emissions from a society with very high per capita emissions.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Money represents a valid claim on existing goods and newly produced goods and services. (The GOP remembers that these are just bits every time a Republican President is elected and forgets it when a Democrat is elected. This has been true since the "voodoo economics" introduced by Reagan in 1981.) If my government bonds become useless because the government has renounced them, then they've destroyed my claim on some goods and services. People, especially people of my age, who vote, take a very dim view of being made arbitrarily poorer by government action.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It really doesn't matter why the storm surge was of a certain height. It was a certain height above sea level. If sea level had been lower, the surge would have been lower.
And, contrary to your statement, the water did stop. It was stopped by higher ground, which had to be maybe a foot higher to stop it because of CO2 emissions. Depending on the ground slope, this covered a lot more area than just one foot farther.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
A lowess smooth filter can help analyze trends at various points in the Church and White global sea level dataset. The trend from 1930-1950 is significantly slower than the post-2000 trend: the error bars don't overlap.
If this is satellite data, where are the photos showing proof of shrinking ice caps? The 25 years ago pictures vs. today? Oh and it should show summer vs summer pictures or winter vs winter pictures not winter vs. summer. Show me.