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NASA Earth

NASA Scientists Paint Stark Picture of Accelerating Sea Level Rise 382

A NASA panel yesterday announced widely reported finding that global sea levels have risen about three inches since 1992, and that these levels are expected to keep rising as much as several more feet over the next century -- on the upper end of model-based predictions that have been made so far. From the Sydney Morning Herald piece linked above: NASA says Greenland has lost an average of 303 gigatons [of ice] yearly for the past decade. Since it takes 360 gigatons to raise sea level by a millimetre, that would suggest Greenland has done this about eight times over just in the last 10 years or so. "People need to be prepared for sea level rise," said Joshua Willis, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "It's not going to stop."
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NASA Scientists Paint Stark Picture of Accelerating Sea Level Rise

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  • Action Required !! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If this is actually a credible report, then the U.S. government needs to stop funding the rebuilding/construction of areas that are CURRENTLY under sea level like New Orleans and the dikes and berms around it. No more federal funds of any kind for regions currently under water!

    Until basic common sense measures like these happen, then we can rightly conclude this is just another "climate change hysteria" study. If the government doesn't believe in their own studies, then it is wrong to use them to force acti

    • by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @05:33PM (#50405225)

      If this is actually a credible report, then the U.S. government needs to stop funding the rebuilding/construction of areas that are CURRENTLY under sea level like New Orleans and the dikes and berms around it. No more federal funds of any kind for regions currently under water!

      By that logic we should just write off large swathes of the Netherlands. Dykes and berms work just fine, and we have the engineering means to keep portions of land we consider valuable dry even if the waters rise 10 or 20 feet. New Orleans would fit in this category in my opinion. It is a unique part of American heritage and a cultural gem (one of not-so-many the US possesses), well worth the investment of Federal dollars to keep around.

      Not to mention that it is by far less expensive to retain land by shoring up or building new dykes, than it is to reclaim land already submerged. Not as cheap as ditching it of course, but in places where it is worthwhile (New York City, Hoboken, New Orleans, Holland, and various other places) it is much smarter to keep existing places dry than leave them to be inundated and then realize our mistake later and either lose them forever, or pay even more to reclaim them.

      • by chipschap ( 1444407 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @05:35PM (#50405249)

        Hoboken is worth keeping? Now that's something :)

        I'm not radicalized in either direction on climate change, but there are very talented people at NASA. Maybe we should listen.

      • by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        At what point would it make more sense to abandon a low-lying city or relocate it to higher ground than to shore it up? Until this question is answered, nobody can say for sure that New Orleans or New York City is worth saving.

      • By that logic we should just write off large swathes of the Netherlands.

        That doesn't follow. The Netherlands don't have a choice. We do.

        Dykes and berms work just fine, and we have the engineering means to keep portions of land we consider valuable dry even if the waters rise 10 or 20 feet.

        That also doesn't follow. The dyke and berm system in New Orleans was being "shored up" using local, State, and Federal money, yet "somehow" a very large part of the money mysteriously ended up elsewhere, and not spent on building or maintaining dykes and berms.

        The engineering and technology do work just fine... but the "system" of dykes and berms did not.

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        Well, a lot depends on how your actions fit into your long term vision, if anything. "We'll just rebuild this neighborhood and everything will be hunky-dory" is obviously not a long term plan.

        The reason the Netherlands flood control makes sense is that the value of 25% of their country's land area far outweighs the cost of reclaiming it, as simple as that. When the net present value of keeping the flood waters off a piece ofland exceeds the net present value of the use you'll get from it, then it's time

    • If this is actually a credible report, then the U.S. government needs to stop funding the rebuilding/construction of areas that are CURRENTLY under sea level like New Orleans and the dikes and berms around it.

      New Orleans was built on the high ground. But over time, parts of it slowly sank into the soft marshland underneath. There is no way they will abandon it. It's cheaper to continue to keep the water out. And it is mostly state and local money being spent, so let the locals vote with their pocketbook. I'm glad, because it is indeed a very special place.

      • They won't abandon NO. But the 9th ward isn't going to be rebuilt. The residents don't have the resources and are stuck living in the next cheapest available housing.

        That said the 9th ward should not be rebuilt at all. It should be a park that is used as a flood basin, being the lowest part of NO.

        The 9th was also a culturally self reinforcing shithole. The residents are better off spread out, so they can be slowly civilized by their new neighbors.

      • But over time, parts of it slowly sank into the soft marshland underneath.

        But the fourth one stayed up!

      • New Orleans has the inherent problem of being built ion a river delta. All deltas subside slowly with time, even given the same sea level, but in nature are continually replenished at the surface by new silt coming down the river. After you build a city, this process cannot continue.

        Has anyone thought of drilling a grid of injection wells throughout New Orleans so that fresh mud could be injected at some calculated level under the city to slowly raise it? This would obviously have to take place at the same

    • Until basic common sense measures like these happen, then we can rightly conclude this is just another "climate change hysteria" study. If the government doesn't believe in their own studies, then it is wrong to use them to force actions on others.

      You expect government to act sensibly?

      And you propose we ignore scientific studies until governments take action?

      Sounds like a recipe for doom.

    • If this is actually a credible report, then the U.S. government needs to stop funding the rebuilding/construction of areas that are CURRENTLY under sea level like New Orleans and the dikes and berms around it.

      That turns out to be harder than you would think.
      http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea... [fivethirtyeight.com]

      • If this is actually a credible report, then the U.S. government needs to stop funding the rebuilding/construction of areas that are CURRENTLY under sea level like New Orleans and the dikes and berms around it.

        That turns out to be harder than you would think.

        Uh no. No it isn't, at least, not to do a pretty decent job. You just don't give any funding for rebuilding, you prohibit any funding given for other purposes from being used for rebuilding, and you prohibit any disaster relief check recipients from using the money for buying back into their ruined communities. Some people will do it anyway, spend the minimum effort preventing that during the escrow process, some people will slip through but you can catch most of 'em.

        You may not be able to stop people from

    • It should be noted that with the current levees around New Orleans, the sea level rise referred to in TFS will become a problem somewhere around 4000AD (the city averages about 500 mm below sea level, the levees rather more than 1500 mm above sea level)....

      And this assumes we don't just shovel another foot of dirt onto the levees every couple centuries....

      • When you look at the levees height you have to look at maximum high tide but possible storm surge (or maximum flood of the river, God forbid all 3 happen at the same time). SLR will be a problem for New Orleans a lot sooner than you think.

    • by khallow ( 566160 )
      The thing is, New Orleans is not underwater.
    • If this is actually a credible report, then the U.S. government needs to stop funding the rebuilding/construction of areas that are CURRENTLY under sea level like New Orleans and the dikes and berms around it. No more federal funds of any kind for regions currently under water!

      Until basic common sense measures like these happen, then we can rightly conclude this is just another "climate change hysteria" study. If the government doesn't believe in their own studies, then it is wrong to use them to force actions on others.

      The problem with New Orleans is that it's the major port city at the mouth of the Mississippi River. As long as it's feasible they'll keep it going. If the IPCC projections are correct 'Nawlins has maybe another 50 or 75 years.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    *takes out a cup filled with ice* See! The ice melting doesn't raise the water. So obviously global warming is fake. May God smite those heathen nerds!

  • I live on a hill, so I guess I'm safe. Can't wait till I have waterfront property though.

    • I live on a hill, so I guess I'm safe. Can't wait till I have waterfront property though.

      Here [bbc.com] are some people who lived on a hill near the ocean. Hope you do better than they did.

      • by quenda ( 644621 )

        Here [bbc.com] are some people who lived on a hill near the ocean. Hope you do better than they did.

        Thats not a hill, it's a coastal sand dune. Building your home on a beach dune is idiotic at the best of times.

  • So long Bangladesh.

  • What? Since when do we have a Mexican province?
  • 3mm is the key (Score:2, Insightful)

    by blogagog ( 1223986 )
    In fairness, you should mention that the sea level rises about 3mm a year, and has done so since at least 1650, which I think is when they first started measuring it. It hasn't been a major problem for the last 350 years, so I don't expect it will be a problem for the next 350. After all, we are much more advanced now.
    • Re:3mm is the key (Score:5, Informative)

      by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @06:20PM (#50405557) Homepage Journal

      http://www.skepticalscience.co... [skepticalscience.com]

      Scroll down to figure 3... "Global mean sea level from 1870 to 2006 with one standard deviation error"

      What is the first thing that you notice about the character of this plot? Is is linear? Does your statement make sense from what you know of trends and basic algerbra?

      • http://www.skepticalscience.co... [skepticalscience.com]

        Scroll down to figure 3... "Global mean sea level from 1870 to 2006 with one standard deviation error"

        What is the first thing that you notice about the character of this plot? Is is linear? Does your statement make sense from what you know of trends and basic algerbra?

        Looks pretty close to linear from where I sit. For absolute certain it's slight acceleration is grossly slower than temperature rise, so that's hopefull we aren't facing any grossly non-linear sea rise. Bonus is that in the IPCC latest report they graph instrumental to projected and it has tracked at the low end of projections.

      • Scroll down to figure 3... "Global mean sea level from 1870 to 2006 with one standard deviation error"

        What is the first thing that you notice about the character of this plot? Is is linear? Does your statement make sense from what you know of trends and basic algerbra?

        Does it matter?

        The sea will rise, or it won't... we aren't going to stop burning coal, oil, or natural gas in either case...

  • sucks to be there...
  • by HangingChad ( 677530 ) on Thursday August 27, 2015 @06:23PM (#50405577) Homepage

    I can tell from the comments most of you don't live near the ocean. Down here in South Florida it's already making an impact. There are storm drains that flow water during high tide up and down the coast and boat docks underwater. Miami is worse. Hallendale Beach has five of their seven fresh water pumps closed because of salt water intrusion.

    The real problem that no one is talking about is what happens when Miami gets nailed by a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane? We're going to have boats washing up on I-95. Do we spend the money to rebuild Miami just to have it flood 40 years later? Or when it gets nailed by another hurricane?

  • ... surf's up! :-)
  • that would suggest Greenland has done this about eight times over

    Isn't there land based ice melting into the oceans from other places, like say, Antarctica?

    • For now, Antarctica is losing much less ice than Greenland.

      • by ihtoit ( 3393327 )

        what they don't take into account is the amount of sea ice that reforms during local Winter.
        Or the fact that in Summer in the Northern hemisphere, it's Winter in the South and vice versa.
        Plus they ignore data prior to 1976 for the simple reason that according to them it's not accurate enough when the truth is it doesn't fit their model.

    • by AaronW ( 33736 )

      Also, water expands when it warms. The density of water is greatest at around 4C. Given how deep the ocean is, it doesn't take a lot of warming to raise the sea level noticeably. I read recently that around 1/3 of the sea level rise is due to melting mountain glaciers, 1/3 from increasing ocean temperature and 1/3 from Greenland ice melting. I suspect the amount of ice from Antarctica will increase significantly now that the ice shelves are breaking up which are holding back a lot of ice.

  • Here comes the people who couldn't give a fuck about what happens after they're dead, so long as they're not 'inconvenienced' by anything right now. The Human Race gets what it deserves, I guess.
  • <sarcasm>It won't be a problem in North Carolina because they banned sea level rise [scientificamerican.com] planning. Texas and Florida should be fine too because you can't talk about climate change there or plan for it, so therefore it's not happening there. Clearly this so-called sea-level rise only happens in places where those pesky liberals who believe this so-called science live. Why, God will just protect these states just like he parted the Red Sea for Moses.</sarcasm>

  • Simple math exposes the blatantly fraudulent claims being made here. Also where does TFS make the switch between imperial and metric measurement and where does it distinguish between the two for those who don't know what the fuck an inch is? (it's 25.4mm)

  • Can't America send in some drone strikes against those pesky Greenlanders who are dumping their ice in the water? Bombing them will teach them a lesson!

  • by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Friday August 28, 2015 @01:48AM (#50407375)

    There's only one thing to do: buy real estate in Greenland.

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

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