Oceans Rising Fast

[amber]

OCEANS RISING FAST, NEW STUDIES FIND
Melting ice could raise levels up to 20 feet by 2100, scientists say
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Friday, March 24, 2006


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Glaciers and ice sheets on opposite ends of the Earth are melting faster than previously thought and could cause sea levels around the world to rise as much as 13 to 20 feet by the end of the century, scientists are reporting today.

If the researchers' estimates are correct, a rise in ocean waters projected by the new studies not only would drown many of the low-lying inhabited atolls and islands that are already endangered by rising ocean waters, it also would threaten coastal cities and harbors on every continent.

Scientists have been warning for decades that greenhouse gases from autos and industry are warming the planet and raising the seas, but the studies appearing today in the journal Science are the first to suggest that sea levels could climb as high as 20 feet as a result of global warming.

The studies by two teams of researchers are the first to combine data on long-term climate change and sea ice melting from both the north and south polar regions.

"This is a real eye-opener set of results," said geoscientist Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona, who led one of two teams of university and government climatologists. "We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade, (and) if we don't do something soon, we're committed to 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) of sea level rise in the future."

The scientists used models of climate change widely accepted by government and university researchers and the fossil record of episodes of global warming thousands of years ago.

The teams, which Overpeck led together with Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., analyzed climate and polar ice records from 130,000 years ago during a period of global warming when Earth was tilted somewhat more on its axis than it is today and its orbit around the sun was slightly different. As a result, the sun at that time warmed the north polar regions by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit, Overpeck and his colleagues calculated.

By using evidence from ice cores, stranded coral reefs, fossilized pollen and ancient ocean sediments, the team estimated that Greenland's glaciers and Arctic sea ice all melted rapidly in that period and thrust sea levels up by about 10 feet. Overpeck said that during the same period, the West Antarctic ice sheet, much of which is unstable below sea level, may have also melted along with other ice-clad coasts of Antarctica and added another 10 feet to the rise in global sea level.

The teams then compared that era to what might happen in this century if emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial gases into the atmosphere continue to increase dramatically, as present trends foresee.

They concluded that ice in both the Artic and Antarctic regions is now melting faster than previously believed and, unless the trend is reversed, that would lead to an average global temperature increase of at least 4 degrees Fahrenheit and a rise from today's global sea level of 13 to 20 feet. Melting of glaciers on Greenland and Arctic sea ice alone could raise sea levels by considerably more than 3 feet, they calculated.

Their conclusions are already provoking controversy -- even among other scientists who are concerned about the impact of greenhouse gases on warming trends but who foresee much smaller increases in future sea levels.

John R. Christy, a noted atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama who supports the idea that human activities are a major cause of global warming, said in an interview that "these papers don't alarm me. When you look at all the data, it's confusing but not alarming. People are searching for hard answers, and there's still a lot of speculation."

Where Overpeck's team said that "sea level rise could be faster than widely thought," Christy said: "I wish they'd written 'could or could not be faster.' "

On the other side, James Hansen, a leading NASA climate expert who recently accused White House officials of trying to censor his scientific reports, supported the findings.
[Environmental studies have been changed and fudged for years and years and years to serve special interests, which usually means politicians and the businesses that own them]

The work by the two teams "is a useful contribution because they point out that sea level change may be much more rapid than we thought," Hansen said in an e-mail. "The practical problem for humanity is that ice sheet disintegration starts slowly, but once it gets going fast enough it will be out of our control and there will be no way to stop it.

"The further implication is that we have to get serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions now, not wait 15 years until some magic new technology is available."

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton geoscientist and member of the university's Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, agreed with Hansen.

"These are important papers," he said in an interview, "because they provide new insights into the effects of temperature change on melting ice at both poles. They show how even modest increases in global temperatures could put the Earth in a dangerous spot.

"We don't have to know for sure how fast the glaciers and polar ice sheets would disappear to realize that this is a serious warning, and by the end of this century we could be locked into an irreversible trend that no technology could reverse."

In a report that also appears in today's issue of Science, Robert Bindschadler, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wrote that Canadian and European satellites monitoring glaciers around the margins of both Greenland and Antarctica provide strong support for the new findings.

Radar aboard the satellites shows that for the past five years, in both the northern and southern regions, warmer waters have been moving into cold ocean layers 3,000 feet deep where the bases of many large glaciers lie, Bindschadler said. The warm waters are rapidly increasing the rate at which those glaciers, as well as deep-rooted sea ice around them, are melting -- and thus are speeding the pace of the rise in sea level, he concluded.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NG22HTITV1.DTL

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by amber

OCEANS RISING FAST, NEW STUDIES FIND
Melting ice could raise levels up to 20 feet by 2100, scientists say
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Friday, March 24, 2006


Printable Version
Email This Article




Glaciers and ice sheets on opposite ends of the Earth are melting faster than previously thought and could cause sea levels around the world to rise as much as 13 to 20 feet by the end of the century, scientists are reporting today.

If the researchers' estimates are correct, a rise in ocean waters projected by the new studies not only would drown many of the low-lying inhabited atolls and islands that are already endangered by rising ocean waters, it also would threaten coastal cities and harbors on every continent.

Scientists have been warning for decades that greenhouse gases from autos and industry are warming the planet and raising the seas, but the studies appearing today in the journal Science are the first to suggest that sea levels could climb as high as 20 feet as a result of global warming.

The studies by two teams of researchers are the first to combine data on long-term climate change and sea ice melting from both the north and south polar regions.

"This is a real eye-opener set of results," said geoscientist Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona, who led one of two teams of university and government climatologists. "We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade, (and) if we don't do something soon, we're committed to 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) of sea level rise in the future."

The scientists used models of climate change widely accepted by government and university researchers and the fossil record of episodes of global warming thousands of years ago.

The teams, which Overpeck led together with Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., analyzed climate and polar ice records from 130,000 years ago during a period of global warming when Earth was tilted somewhat more on its axis than it is today and its orbit around the sun was slightly different. As a result, the sun at that time warmed the north polar regions by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit, Overpeck and his colleagues calculated.

By using evidence from ice cores, stranded coral reefs, fossilized pollen and ancient ocean sediments, the team estimated that Greenland's glaciers and Arctic sea ice all melted rapidly in that period and thrust sea levels up by about 10 feet. Overpeck said that during the same period, the West Antarctic ice sheet, much of which is unstable below sea level, may have also melted along with other ice-clad coasts of Antarctica and added another 10 feet to the rise in global sea level.

The teams then compared that era to what might happen in this century if emissions of carbon dioxide and other industrial gases into the atmosphere continue to increase dramatically, as present trends foresee.

They concluded that ice in both the Artic and Antarctic regions is now melting faster than previously believed and, unless the trend is reversed, that would lead to an average global temperature increase of at least 4 degrees Fahrenheit and a rise from today's global sea level of 13 to 20 feet. Melting of glaciers on Greenland and Arctic sea ice alone could raise sea levels by considerably more than 3 feet, they calculated.

Their conclusions are already provoking controversy -- even among other scientists who are concerned about the impact of greenhouse gases on warming trends but who foresee much smaller increases in future sea levels.

John R. Christy, a noted atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama who supports the idea that human activities are a major cause of global warming, said in an interview that "these papers don't alarm me. When you look at all the data, it's confusing but not alarming. People are searching for hard answers, and there's still a lot of speculation."

Where Overpeck's team said that "sea level rise could be faster than widely thought," Christy said: "I wish they'd written 'could or could not be faster.' "

On the other side, James Hansen, a leading NASA climate expert who recently accused White House officials of trying to censor his scientific reports, supported the findings.
[Environmental studies have been changed and fudged for years and years and years to serve special interests, which usually means politicians and the businesses that own them]

The work by the two teams "is a useful contribution because they point out that sea level change may be much more rapid than we thought," Hansen said in an e-mail. "The practical problem for humanity is that ice sheet disintegration starts slowly, but once it gets going fast enough it will be out of our control and there will be no way to stop it.

"The further implication is that we have to get serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions now, not wait 15 years until some magic new technology is available."

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton geoscientist and member of the university's Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, agreed with Hansen.

"These are important papers," he said in an interview, "because they provide new insights into the effects of temperature change on melting ice at both poles. They show how even modest increases in global temperatures could put the Earth in a dangerous spot.

"We don't have to know for sure how fast the glaciers and polar ice sheets would disappear to realize that this is a serious warning, and by the end of this century we could be locked into an irreversible trend that no technology could reverse."

In a report that also appears in today's issue of Science, Robert Bindschadler, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., wrote that Canadian and European satellites monitoring glaciers around the margins of both Greenland and Antarctica provide strong support for the new findings.

Radar aboard the satellites shows that for the past five years, in both the northern and southern regions, warmer waters have been moving into cold ocean layers 3,000 feet deep where the bases of many large glaciers lie, Bindschadler said. The warm waters are rapidly increasing the rate at which those glaciers, as well as deep-rooted sea ice around them, are melting -- and thus are speeding the pace of the rise in sea level, he concluded.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NG22HTITV1.DTL

So James Hanson worked for NASA huh? I would imagine that he probably doesnt anymore after a comment like that.

[madformac]

It's not necessarily an exageration. I'm a firm believer that there is a point where the momentum of a situation is irreversible. Climate change will occur anyway but we are certainly not helping it. Normally it would be like a car running at 30 mph on gasoline. Humans have come in and strapped a nitro booster on the situation and it's accelerating to a point of being out of our control.

Then again "control" is a stupid word to use. We can't control nature. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tidal changes, volcanic activity, asteroids. Can't do **** about any of them despite what the nerds say. The more species we kill off the more the balance swings artificially.

What we can do is minimise our effect on these elements. Nobody in power will do anything, especially in the USA, until enough scientists tell them it is either borderline or too late. George W Bush probably thinks global warming is something invented to keep your testicles hot in winter.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by madformac

It's not necessarily an exageration. I'm a firm believer that there is a point where the momentum of a situation is irreversible. Climate change will occur anyway but we are certainly not helping it. Normally it would be like a car running at 30 mph on gasoline. Humans have come in and strapped a nitro booster on the situation and it's accelerating to a point of being out of our control.

Then again "control" is a stupid word to use. We can't control nature. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tidal changes, volcanic activity, asteroids. Can't do **** about any of them despite what the nerds say. The more species we kill off the more the balance swings artificially.

What we can do is minimise our effect on these elements. Nobody in power will do anything, especially in the USA, until enough scientists tell them it is either borderline or too late. George Bush probably thinks global warming is something invented to keep your testicles warm in winter.

Did you ever see the movie Day After Tomorrow?

[madformac]

Originally Posted by DavidMn

Did you ever see the movie Day After Tomorrow?

No, apart from Bond and Tom Cruise movies I'm not big on action blockbusters. Is it another testosterone filled "humans save the planet from themselves" Armageddon mentality film?

I have noticed and even, dare I say it, predicted a noticable increase in natural disasters over the past few years. The rate, frequency and intensity of these instances, such as last years gulf hurricanes I believe are a result of something happening. I just don't know what. Some may call it environmental changes, some might say "act of god" and the end of the world is nigh but whatever it is it's rather disturbing to me. I feel rather more safe in the fact I live near no volcanos, fault lines, hurricane zones or low lying costal areas but it's not comforting for those of you that do and it makes no difference if we get a global killer anyway. Ah ****.. I'll just crack a beer and get on with life..

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by madformac

No, apart from Bond and Tom Cruise movies I'm not big on action blockbusters. Is it another testosterone filled "humans save the planet from themselves" Armageddon mentality film?

I have noticed and even, dare I say it, predicted a noticable increase in natural disasters over the past few years. The rate, frequency and intensity of these instances, such as last years gulf hurricanes I believe are a result of something happening. I just don't know what. Some may call it environmental changes, some might say "act of god" and the end of the world is nigh but whatever it is it's rather disturbing to me. I feel rather more safe in the fact I live near no volcanos, fault lines, hurricane zones or low lying costal areas but it's not comforting for those of you that do and it makes no difference if we get a global killer anyway. Ah ****.. I'll just crack a beer and get on with life..

Well, if you can stomach Dennis Quaid, its not bad. But the subject matter deals with this subject. Of course its overblown as hollywood is wont to do, but it makes you think.

[Richard B]

I read a similiar, more detailed article as well:
CNN: IceMelt!

Thanks to the news media, Hollywood, paranoids and alarmists, people are freaking out. I'm a fatalist, when it's over, no matter what the reason, it's over. I'm not the worry type.

The year 2100??? Good lord I won't even be around to worry about it if it does happen. Besides we should all know that one thing you can count on, is that nothing is permanent, it's all temporary this life as we know it. The poor Dinosaurs found out. Course they don't care, they're dead.

I say all this because if it is true (and it is still specualtion), there is not much we can do about it now can we?

So I say go ahead...Drown in the sea of love...

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by Richard B

I read a similiar, more detailed article as well:
CNN: IceMelt!

Thanks to the news media, Hollywood, paranoids and alarmists, people are freaking out. I'm a fatalist, when it's over, no matter what the reason, it's over. I'm not the worry type.

The year 2100??? Good lord I won't even be around to worry about if it does happen. Besides we should all know that one thing you can count on, is that nothing is permanent, it's all temporary this life as we know it. The poor Dinosaurs found out. Course they don't care, they're dead.

I say all this because if it is true (and it is still specualtion), there is not much we can do about it now can we?

So I say go ahead...Drown in the sea of love...

I like your glass half full attitude sir.

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by madformac

It's not necessarily an exageration. I'm a firm believer that there is a point where the momentum of a situation is irreversible. Climate change will occur anyway but we are certainly not helping it. Normally it would be like a car running at 30 mph on gasoline. Humans have come in and strapped a nitro booster on the situation and it's accelerating to a point of being out of our control.

Then again "control" is a stupid word to use. We can't control nature. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tidal changes, volcanic activity, asteroids. Can't do **** about any of them despite what the nerds say. The more species we kill off the more the balance swings artificially.

What we can do is minimise our effect on these elements. Nobody in power will do anything, especially in the USA, until enough scientists tell them it is either borderline or too late. George W Bush probably thinks global warming is something invented to keep your testicles hot in winter.

as I showed in my earlier post (please see post http://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showpo...87&postcount=1)
we've ignored the signs so long that now we've passed the "tipping point"
there are numerous articles about frog/toad die-offs, and that the extinction rate will now speed up......

The sad fact is, we in America (and by "we" I mean the people in power, the administration and the multinationals...) have ignored the voices of reason and now the price will be paid by the entire world.

I should mention that the US is not the only culprit, that China is a GROSS polluter, there are NO environmental controls there at all...and by sheer virtue of their population, and their increasingly westernized style of production and living (consumer consumption, cars etc) they are fast becoming a major player on the pollution landscape.

[David]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

The sad fact is, we in America (and by "we" I mean the people in power, the administration and the multinationals...) have ignored the voices of reason and now the price will be paid by the entire world.

I don't wanna die .... yet!!!!!

I just read an article that said the salmon-farming industry is going to get bigger & bigger until it destroys all the rivers where the wild salmon spawn. So sooner or later, you won't be able to eat or look at wild salmon. You'll be forced to eat fish that have been living in a shoebox.

But at least I'm here to keep all Ledgies alive in the event of a tsunami. How lucky you all are!

[amber]

Originally Posted by Richard B

I read a similiar, more detailed article as well:
CNN: IceMelt!

Thanks to the news media, Hollywood, paranoids and alarmists, people are freaking out. I'm a fatalist, when it's over, no matter what the reason, it's over. I'm not the worry type.

The year 2100??? Good lord I won't even be around to worry about it if it does happen. Besides we should all know that one thing you can count on, is that nothing is permanent, it's all temporary this life as we know it. The poor Dinosaurs found out. Course they don't care, they're dead.

I say all this because if it is true (and it is still specualtion), there is not much we can do about it now can we?

So I say go ahead...Drown in the sea of love...

No offense, sweetie, but what you just said is totally retarded. No wonder we're in this kind of shape.

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by amber

No offense, sweetie, but what you just said is totally retarded. No wonder we're in this kind of shape.

You missed my point, sweetums. Telling the world in a news article that the oceans are rising and it may exceed 20 feet by, OMG, 2100 is retarded. What's the point?

Run for the hills!

Invest in buckets!

(Oh and to all those who dug holes and built bomb shelters...waste of money. Gonna be flooded in 2100!!!) Run, swim!!

Get it now, Amber? It was a satirical response I posted to the article. So no offense taken since I wasn't being serious in the first place. Except for me being a fatalist. I guess though their is some truth: nothing's gonna change unless everyone changes. But then everything changes. It's a conundrum.

[amber]

Originally Posted by Richard B

You missed my point, sweetums. Telling the world in a news article that the oceans are rising and it may exceed 20 feet by, OMG, 2100 is retarded. What's the point?

Run for the hills!

Invest in buckets!

(Oh and to all those who dug holes and built bomb shelters...waste of money. Gonna be flooded in 2100!!!) Run, swim!!

Get it now, Amber? It was a satirical response I posted to the article. So no offense taken since I wasn't being serious in the first place. Except for me being a fatalist. I guess though their is some truth: nothing's gonna change unless everyone changes. But then everything changes. It's a conundrum.

Yeah, no, I still don't get it. I don't see a problem with telling people the ocean will rise at least 20 feet by 2100. It's a scientific projection that illustrates the extent of a current problem.
Whatever, no big.

[Richard B]

Originally Posted by amber

Yeah, no, I still don't get it. I don't see a problem with telling people the ocean will rise at least 20 feet by 2100. It's a scientific projection that illustrates the extent of a current problem.
Whatever, no big.

That's just it. It isn't fact. You say will rise, the articles clearly state may rise. I agree with you though, no big. Just another filler article to keep people from the reality outside their front door: war, gangs, drugs, violence, poverty, illiteracy, racism...

[irishgrl]

Originally Posted by Richard B

That's just it. It isn't fact. You say will rise, the articles clearly state may rise. I agree with you though, no big. Just another filler article to keep people from the reality outside their front door: war, gangs, drugs, violence, poverty, illiteracy, racism...

I believe we've covered those topics a time or two