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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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