11 alarming facts about sea-level rise
An important read – 11 alarming facts about sea-level rise
The information is slightly dated. The Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica are melting even faster now (and no mention of Larsen C or Totten glacier). The actual number of people that will “regularly flood” is 500,000,000, twice the estimate in this document (provided they do not move – which they will have to. Plan accordingly). New York and Miami will be lost as will all other low-lying coastal regions.
It’s a good primer, just know that it’s going to be even worse then this.
This is from April 2016:
‘RIMS 2016: Sea Level Rise Will Be Worse and Come Sooner’
‘Davidson said recent data that has been collected but has yet to be made official indicates sea levels could rise by roughly 3 meters or 9 feet by 2050-2060, far higher and quicker than current projections.’
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2016/04/12/405089.htm
More good evidence on how useless the IPCC process / reports really are. Changes are happening way too fast now.
Yet from my original link, we read this utter nonsense:
“Substantially limit”? How? By waving our magic wand of hopium?
This is not true. We are not going to be able to limit sea level rise for some centuries now (“we can’t replace the missing ice”, I should trademark that statement). Nor will the rate of sea level rise slow down, it will continue to increase as more ice melts. Maybe it will slow once all the floating ice is gone, but thermal expansion will still continue to expand sea levels until a new equilibrium is finally reached (if ever, it’s speculative).
‘Maybe it will slow once all the floating ice is gone’ ???
Floating ice has no effect on sea level as such, other than its effect in reflecting incoming solar radiation back towards space. (Ice floating on water displaces its own mass of water.)
The loss of floating ice would be expected to result in faster melting on ice on land masses, as grounding of glaciers and ice sheets entering seas is lost and as warmer waters deliver more heat to the land masses.
In all probability, ice (both on water and land) will continue to melt and sea levels will continue to rise until a heat-in-heat-out equilibrium is reached which will correspond to conditions similar to when the atmospheric CO2 concentration was over 400 ppm. That means about 20 metres of sea level rise. Indeed, there could well be more than 20 metres of sea level rise, since nothing whatsoever will be done to limit CO2 emissions in the foreseeable future, so we are facing 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 in the near fiuture. The only questions seem to relate to the timing.
This is a little dated and comes from IPCC but nevertheless is probably still valid now:
‘The Mid-Pliocene (about 3.3 to 3.0 Ma) is the most recent time in Earth’s history when mean global temperatures were substantially warmer for a sustained period (estimated by GCMs to be about 2°C to 3°C above pre-industrial temperatures; Chandler et al., 1994; Sloan et al., 1996; Haywood et al., 2000; Jiang et al., 2005), providing an accessible example of a world that is similar in many respects to what models estimate could be the Earth of the late 21st century. The Pliocene is also recent enough that the continents and ocean basins had nearly reached their present geographic configuration. Taken together, the average of the warmest times during the middle Pliocene presents a view of the equilibrium state of a globally warmer world, in which atmospheric CO2 concentrations (estimated to be between 360 to 400 ppm) were likely higher than pre-industrial values (Raymo and Rau, 1992; Raymo et al., 1996), and in which geologic evidence and isotopes agree that sea level was at least 15 to 25 m above modern levels (Dowsett and Cronin, 1990; Shackleton et al., 1995), with correspondingly reduced ice sheets and lower continental aridity (Guo et al., 2004).
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3-2.html
Needless to say, 25 metres of sea level rise wipes out most of the major cities on this planet and a huge portion of the productive land, especially if a substantial portion of that rise 25 metres comes in a few decades. Which is why ‘nobody’ (other than a handful of ‘idiots’ like me) ever mentions the truth.
I partially agree with this. Not all glaciers are grounded by floating ice. What I was referring to (but failed to detail) is warm water melting floating ice from underneath (far faster then what is visible on the surface) – this is accelerating melt much faster then air temperatures alone.
Air temperature has less effect then water temperatures on rate of ice melt. Ungrounded glaciers will speed their passage to the sea, but retreating glaciers leaving exposed land aren’t affected anymore by warm water and the heat transfer to land. At least, that’s how I understand it. They’re affected by solar radiation, air temperatures, moulins and meltwater from their surface, but their rate of melt will still be less then what warm oceans were able to do.
Climate change is not about saving the planet, it’s about saving human beings from an ugly, difficult future
Looks like God’s fingers are dirty… and there is no saving human beings from an ugly, difficult future. That is absolutely baked-in now as far I can identify. The only thing we can do about it is to get ready. Or pretend otherwise.
TO feel that Homo ingnoranus will ever want much less be capable of changing their ways to ‘save’ even themselves – much less future generations and/or any/all non-bipeds is demonstrably contraindicated. To feel that Homo ingnoranus can even theoretically implement meaningful ntm timely techno-fixes is willfully arrogant fanciful delusion. To feel that Homo ignoranus will ever learn to cooperate and act purposefully for/in the common good is the most perverse form of BS HOPIUM of which I can conceive. To feel that Homo ignoranus is in any way deserving of this planet, much less has a ‘right’ to destroy all life is … well … the definition of evil – IMO. And Americunts are SO deliberately ‘evil’ that all other anus apes appear exceptionally astute in contrast. The best ‘proof’ for intelligent life in the Universe I can imagine is that they’ve not made themselves known to us. Just as the deliberately stupid primate is the most dangerous entity on Earth, an arrogantly stupid greedy delusion species in the most dangerous species in the Universe. The ‘bad news’ is that that we need to go extinct, and the ‘good news’ is that we are determined to make it so.
The Hidden History Of Oil and Tobacco – https://vimeo.com/175541768
Lewis Black’s; only three possible threat levels
level 1, Geezuz fkn Christ
level 2. God fkn damn it
level 3. Wholly fkn Shit
IMO level 4 = 1+2+3
Arctic sea ice failing to form, and melting briefly is a fairly common phenomenon in the winter but the divergence from historic norms has never been greater than currently seen.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/
I’m confident that you (admin) understand that I ‘get it’, that there are 7.6 billion and counting ‘reasons’ why we’re all totally fucked .. that climate chaos (ntm all others) is ALL too real with 100’s of feedbacks and 100’s of categories of impacts, current and pending. And that there are 100’s of hopium claiming that we’ll somehow see the precipice in time to hit the brakes to keep from going over the extinction cliff. BUT BUT BUT, is there even a single action that anyone or everyone could possibly do the change and or alleviate the effects coming down the pipeline? I have none and cannot conceive of such a possibility much less any degree of probability greater than absolute zero. So would that ‘make me’ a monster or inadequate or uncaring or anything other than not buying the bullshit of a million denials and BS excuses for rejecting realities. Not intended as a challenge or a sermon, I’m genuinely curious if you or anyone can envision ANY possibility for any degree of correction or mitigation of the human predicament and the horror of the impacts yet to come?
I could not respond earlier, big ice storm headed this way (supposedly).
You may be missing something that I believe is critical. Why does ‘success’ have to be guaranteed? This is inherent in your questioning of any efforts to be made.
It is an assumption, and a goal that defeats itself by demanding this answer first before any effort is even made.
Consider that of these ‘hundreds’ of feedbacks and current and pending effects – we’re still here. The implication is clear. Obviously, we do not understand everything as much as we think.
Didn’t the human race decline to just 8 breeding pairs and rebound from the very edge of extinction? Hasn’t the Earth itself gone through tremendous upheavals and extinction events? All life forges forward, seeking to live. Only humans are stupid enough to try and deceive themselves and pretend they will do otherwise.
It is a biological imperative to seek to live. Everyone needs to accept that reality and stop pretending otherwise.
None of this answers your questions. Effects will serious to severe to catastrophic.
Mitigation has not even begun (or very barely so, such as reducing emissions from cars and so forth). Almost no mitigation has been tried to date – and virtually every mitigation effort still needs to be tried. That entire effort still lies before us all. Years of effort. And no, I do not know if it will happen to answer your question. If it does, it will eventually be the largest mobilization the world has ever seen.
It is irrelevant if mitigation works or not. It isn’t even the right question to be honest because it presumes to demand only a successful answer. It does not require a successful answer, it only requires the effort. We do not know the answer as we suppose, nor do we know the outcome of any effort that could be made.
There are quite a few remaining unknowns and variables that cannot be accounted for that tell us why we are still here – and how little we really know about how the future habitat could play out.
Here are some unknowns that might matter: volcanism, micro-climates, biodomes, underground ‘cities’ and homes, solar radiation interruptions (comets or whatever) and technological innovation and invention, including carbon-capture. I simply do not know what the unknowns are, nobody apparently does.
The topic of mitigation has been widely addressed in the published literature and articles. Most of these efforts have also not been tried, therefore, it cannot be said that we know how well any of these mitigation efforts will work or not and to what degree. The absence of effort however is remarkable and a indictment against our species. It may be an indication that no meaningful mitigation efforts will be tried. I don’t know.
I’m more interested in adaption myself, believing that mitigation will be ineffective (too little, too late). To that end is what I’m working on right now. How can some humans and some life adapt and survive? I’m quite certain that this will also be tried and explored by many other people in time.
Yes, you’re a monster. We all are.
hey – this editor ‘feature’ sucks in that I can’t keep it from disappearing and by the time I get back to correcting ALL my fucking typing issues it times out and say I’m FKD – please delete this and the prior rant since its fucking illegible although you probably got most of my left drift. Damn – fkn this typing thing is getting harder and harder for me – NTM alleged coherent thought.
I’ve changed edit time limit to 15 minutes. That should help.
Excellent.
Now I need to think of something that hasn’t been said a thousand times before.
In the history of humanity atmospheric CO2 has never been 406 ppm this early in the year.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/mlo_two_years.png
On track for 411 ppm in late May.
IMO, at this point in the planetary spacetime ecocide nightmare, it literally ‘matters’ NOT at all what the numbers (values) are/is for any metric. CO2 could be 311, 411, 911 or 111,111 ppm. SO what? really? We are so totally and irrevocably fkn fkd – in 8 billion ways backwards, sideways and forward that any metric (or set) one could document or imagine it akin to ‘debating’ how many angels can dance of the head of a pin? – or how many misery monkeys does it take to kill a planet? How can too many or too much of anything – ntm everything- not ever be sufficient to snap the chain’s weakest link and send the entire load crashing – in this case in to oblivion? Number of this, amount of that, rate of loss of x, y and z – so fkn what? Keeping stats during a baseball game in no way effects its outcome. Breaking the rules might, or beating the shit out of the other guy might, or being ‘better’ in the ‘playing’ wrt effort, cooperation and/or chance may result in a favorable outcome )or not) But keeping track of the players batting averages (or whatever) doesn’t produce base-runners of scores. Swinging the bat and making contact with the ball is the only action that puts a score of the board. If one is not swinging and contacting, one is merely a spectator and counting the foul balls during the game doesn’t change a thing for anyone. BUT, I fkn despite baseball and ‘sports’ but guessing that this analogy is relatively discernible. I could give a fuck what CO2 or CH4 or X degrees C or date of blue arctic event, of meters of sea level rise by year Y or any such trivia. No one is actually capable of changing the ANY ntm all of the unfolding and subsequent events now in motion – to say nothing of the outcomes – and IMO never could or will be. I don’t need to monitor the speedometer to know if I’m about to hit the proverbial wall with no brakes nor watch as the grounds ‘ rises’ as I fall off a cliff to understand the result is always and ONLY “SPLAT” . I’d rather spent my last moment with eyes closed remembering beauty I’ve witnessed than in featuring myself being scraped of the pavement with a sponge. Apparently I’m just weird like that. SuX 2B me.
Et cetera ad nauseum,
I don’t follow the numbers in the hope of changing the outcome. I follow the numbers in order to keep track of the pace of the meltdown, and the size of the gulf between reality and what those in power say (which increases by the week, of course).
We live in ‘Easter Island societies’ in which precious resources are used to construct monuments to stupidity, and in doing so exacerbate all aspects of the next generation’s predicament. But even statue building must come to an end fairly soon.
I want to be around when all the idiots and liars who have been misleading the masses get their just rewards. Even cognitive dissonance has limits.
Climate Chaos:
‘Warm Atmospheric River Aims Parade of Storms at U.S. West During La Nina Year of 2017’
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/01/17/warm-atmospheric-river-aims-parade-of-storms-at-u-s-west-during-la-nina-year-of-2017/
Meanwhile, a weather bomb is headed towards NZ in the middle of summer.
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/extreme-weather-in-new-zealand.html
Mass extinction – causes and effects – may be an addictive increasingly popular spectator sport of adversarial teams with devoted cliques of ghoulish fans. If so, I am decidedly not in the stands (of that crowd) – and I say there are NO spectators in an extinction event – only participants (both in agency and result) – and there is no sport (contest) in an inevitable outcome.
I appears – from my isolated perch – that (for many, which is not all) … that focusing on metrics, modeling and timeline x to consequence Y etc. etc. seems to serve functions to obfuscate the angst, divest/disguise culpability, objectify the horrors vs personalize, … substitutes for action/responsibility, quantifies vs qualifying ‘the pain of knowing/understanding’ and mitigates guilt. This, for me, has become yet another flavor/form of denial – a substitute for reality and not what I want from my remaining life – and therefor some place/where I’d rather not ‘invest in. Which is an subjective opinion developed both from observation and personal experiences and is certainly not a targeted accusation.
Some people love horror/zombie films and thrill in the mayhem (e.g. objects crushing skulls)- some people like war flicks and are awestruck as they watch machine guns or explosives turning monkeys into Homo McNuggets. Not me. I turn away, close my eyes, do not want such images being processed in my visual cortex muchless brought into consciousness. Same for drowning polar bears and climate refugees in the Med. etc, etc. I know this and SO much more is happening this moment, will not stop (in my life) and will always become worse and worse to witness/process. No thanks. Too much beauty still remains to allocate time for wallowing in the consequences of anus ape angst. Just my take, not meant as advise or an answer to anything. Getting too old and tired to actually GAF about what I can not effect and can/will only have/produce negative impacts on (in) me. Not expecting to have made any ‘sense’ in the rambling much less converts.
Some daze I feel I might prefer being in a literal padded cell – I’d have far fewer and milder headaches and the nurse will bring me candy every few hours. In this fantasy, of course, the nurses are hot and naughty. When it comes to delusion and fantasy, I’m stating categorically, that I FAR prefer those of my own devise and actively forsake all others. …gnash gnash gnaw gnaw gurgle gurgle …
just started – not sure if it’ll be worthwhile yet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa1gZG6iOXI
Shermer gets more and more disgusting every time he opens his mouth – he’s gone so far beyond skepticism – now demonstrable dogma – that his brain fell out, currently serving as “roadkill on the highway of the damned”.
about the Koch Brothers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW1lZgmHbu4
Future harvests of wheat, soybeans and corn could drop by 22 to 49 percent, mostly due to water stress