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Earth Science Technology

Sea Levels Will Rise Faster Than Ever If Earth's Warming Continues, Says Study (scientificamerican.com) 140

Posted by BeauHD from the day-after-tomorrow dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Sea levels across the globe will rise faster than at any time throughout human history if the Earth's warming continues beyond 2 degrees Celsius. The Atlantic coast of North America will be one of the worst-hit areas as melting glaciers cause the sea level to rise over the next century, a new study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds. However, that rise is not expected to be uniform, as gravity and the movement of the ocean will play a role in how the water is distributed, and some areas will be hit worse than others. New York and other cities along the East Coast could see seas rise by more than 3 feet by the end of the century if the Earth warms by 4 or 5 degrees beyond preindustrial levels. If the rate of carbon emissions continues unabated, the authors said, the globe would warm by 2 degrees and cause significant sea-level rise by 2040. It would be worse along the East Coast of North America and Norway, which are expected to experience a sea-level rise of about a foot. The relative speed of the sea's rise means many areas won't have time to adapt, researchers found. And from there, warming would accelerate even faster. Two degrees of warming is expected to cause an average global sea-level rise of 8 inches, but virtually all coastal areas will see more of a rise, [researcher and lead author of the study Svetlana Jevrejeva], found. If warming exceeds 2 degrees by 2100, as some climate scientists worry it might, about 80 percent of the global coastline could experience a rise in sea levels of 6 feet. Such a rapid rise in sea levels is unprecedented since the dawn of the Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago, according to the study. The research takes further the potential for sea-level rise posed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which argued that sea-level rise of 11 to 38 inches is possible by 2100. Many climate scientists have since claimed that estimate is too conservative.
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Sea Levels Will Rise Faster Than Ever If Earth's Warming Continues, Says Study More

Sea Levels Will Rise Faster Than Ever If Earth's Warming Continues, Says Study

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  • Hoax from China (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Eventually we will build a wall and it will be tremendous !

  • Awesome! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Sea Levels Will Rise Faster Than Ever If Earth's Warming Continues, Says Study"

    Awesome! I hope we all die because of it! At least then, we wouldn't have to read about man-made global warming anymore!

    • Re:Awesome! (Score:5, Funny)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @10:46PM (#53242521)
      After explaining all of this to a redneck relative in Nebraska, he now wants to actively cause global warming so that the sea levels rise and drown all of the evil liberals on the coast so that he can deny global warming in peace.

      • Hmmm, Good point.

        Does he have a newsletter I can subscribe to?

        • Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Informative)

          by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @11:04PM (#53242571)
          Nah. He can't write. I tried to explain the importance of this and find some reasons for him to learn such as being able to write letters to his mother, but according to him she can't read very fast and he doesn't want to waste time writing slow enough for her.

      • Noah's Ark (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This is nothing to worry about. The sea level rose (and fell) much faster and much higher in Noah's time and Noah represents "recorded human history", and we are still here. So there.

    • Not to worry, King Trump Cnut will hold back the tide. After all, global warming was invented in China!

  • I own land in Santee (Score:4, Funny)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @10:47PM (#53242523)
    Rise sea levels rise! Gonna retire soon, my 401k ain't shit, go sea levels!

  • And? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @10:47PM (#53242525)

    Without world government nothing will change. Dumping money to invisible entities for carbon will only impact people that volunteer. Meanwhile, developing countries and others (China, India, Russia) will continue to use industrial development (aka high polluters) and surpass others in production and development.

    MAD doctrine seems to be the only viable option. We destroy ourselves if we take positive action, or destroy everyone at the same time if we don't.

    • "World Government"?

      Which Army gets to run things under your scenario?

      Do we start chanting 'USA! USA!' ??

      The heck with that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by s.petry ( 762400 )
        So, saying that something does not exist translates to "but yours is wrong" somehow in your mind? You may want to check your critical thought process.

        • My point is that 'World Government' will by necessity represent the biggest dictatorship the world has never seen before. Freedom doesn't scale that way.

          Now, a World Federation of Republics could work.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by s.petry ( 762400 )
            My point is that there is no World Government so there is no way to enforce World rules on things like Carbon. That is a statement of fact, not an advocacy for something that does not exist. Put your tin foil hat back on, you are embarrassing yourself.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 1u3hr ( 530656 )

              "My point is that there is no World Government so there is no way to enforce World rules"

              Maybe someone could invent a "treaty", or an "agreement" between countries, and create some form of "united nations" to administer it?

              No, that's just crazy and impossible. The only solution is total war until The Donald rules all.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by s.petry ( 762400 )
                How exactly has that worked out with the UN and WTO so far? Has China stopped increasing industry, stopped expanding territory? How about Russia and India? DPRK? I know, the UAE is all "Green" right? You should really consider visiting the real world sometimes, it would make the argument much less one sided.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by 1u3hr ( 530656 )

                  So, international diplomacy isn't perfect, let's just forget about it and solve every dispute by force.

                  Anyway, pointless discussing anything with someone whose ego drives him to paste "Senior System Engineer/Architect" on every comment he makes.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by s.petry ( 762400 )
                    So when you lose the argument you resort to ad hominem and fabrication. Thanks for displaying your lack of intellect _and_ character.

              • The UN has no teeth (which is probably good), and treaties are of use only insofar as all the major CO2 producers sign on and meet their commitments.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It was moving in the right direction until today. All the important players were on-board with Paris. Now Trump is in, we can forget that I suppose.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by s.petry ( 762400 )
        The three examples I gave would not play the games with Hillary in office either. The world won't end with Trump being the President, based on the Hope and Change message of Barack Obama we can safely say prejudging has no merit. Me thinks you are being what we like to call a sore loser.

    • MAD doctrine seems to be the only viable option. We destroy ourselves if we take positive action, or destroy everyone at the same time if we don't.

      this. Only this.

    • You left out the USA and Trump's disbelief. Bring on the hurricanes and tornadoes unabated and the major destruction that will repeat, year after year in the USA midwest.

  • Calling it for President Trump (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @11:06PM (#53242575) Journal

    When he wins, President Trump will put a stop to this sea level rising nonsense. It was just a hoax, anyway.

    Let me be the first to congratulate our new president.

    • When he wins, President Trump will put a stop to this sea level rising nonsense. It was just a hoax, anyway.

      Let me be the first to congratulate our new president.

      Darn toot'n. He will build a wall and make the ocean pay for it.

      • Re:Calling it for President Trump (Score:5, Interesting)

        by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2016 @12:48AM (#53242751) Journal

        Too be honest, I'm still pretty hopeful. You never know. Donald Trump wouldn't be the first shallow man who had to grow up and find strength when faced with a daunting situation. Economy, debt, foreign policy, domestic issues, getting the cost of health care down. It'll be interesting to see how an all-GOP government with Trump at the helm will fare against these challenges. I hope he rises to the occasion. It's all on him now.

        And if he doesn't, it will be fun being the opposition for the next four years. Opposition suits me, to be honest.

        Either way, it's going to be interesting.

        • And if he doesn't, it will be fun being the opposition for the next four years. Opposition suits me, to be honest.

          Two years.

          Reps have control of the legislature and executive. If they don't fix some things in the next two years, the Dems will take control of the legislature, and we'll have even worse gridlock than we've had.

          Note that I'm not advocating any particular fixes. Mostly because I'm pretty sure that MY solutions won't be included in any particular fixes....

          • And if he doesn't, it will be fun being the opposition for the next four years. Opposition suits me, to be honest.

            Two years.

            Reps have control of the legislature and executive. If they don't fix some things in the next two years, the Dems will take control of the legislature, and we'll have even worse gridlock than we've had.

            Probably not. The Republican margin in the House of Representatives looks pretty safe at the moment, and in the Senate it doesn't look like the seats that are up for election in 2018 have incumbents that are particularly vulnerable.

            It's a U.S. tradition that the party that wins the presidential election does poorly in the following mid-term, but the election maps make it look like "poorly" won't mean "change control of the Senate or House."

        • Too be honest, I'm still pretty hopeful. You never know. Donald Trump wouldn't be the first shallow man who had to grow up and find strength when faced with a daunting situation.

          This is why Trump won. Everyone KNOWS what would happen if Hillary were to be elected and it is so terrible that the American voters chose one of the worst possible "unknown quantities" available.

          I am just glad it is all over for now. What a mess... it is funny though, Trump offers more hope and change than Obama who was elected on hope and change... which of course did not work out so well.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z80a ( 971949 )

      Given the fact he will meet like 60-70% opposition of the population after getting elected? probably he will accept it.
      And then as the irl Hercule he is promise to punch the global warming in the face, literally.

    • Let me be the first to say it:

      In yer face.

      • In yer face.

        I wish the new president well. I'm looking forward to see how a fully GOP-controlled government will do. I'm always hopeful for the future.

        • Same here. I don't think I really even like Trump. I see him as a large orange bottle of Drano. I certainly wouldn't want to drink it. I don't think I've even ever used Drano, it would wipe out the important cultures in our septic tank.

          But I think the Federal Government badly needs a flush.

          I wouldn't have ever been as strongly in favor of Trump if the old boys at the GOP didn't hate him so much. The old 'Chamber of Commerce' Republicans got kicked to the curb in this race.

          He saved us from Jeb Bush and

    • There is one bright ray of hope. If the sea level gets too high, all that Manhattan property he owns will be soggy and worthless. Granted, that is going to take 100 years or so, but I am banking that the Trump dynasty will have seized total control by then.

  • Translated to metric (Score:5, Informative)

    by DavidMZ ( 3411229 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2016 @11:09PM (#53242583)
    Since the summary uses degree Celsius, let's go all the way to metric:

    Sea levels across the globe will rise faster than at any time throughout human history if the Earth's warming continues beyond 2 degrees Celsius. The Atlantic coast of North America will be one of the worst-hit areas as melting glaciers cause the sea level to rise over the next century, a new study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds. However, that rise is not expected to be uniform, as gravity and the movement of the ocean will play a role in how the water is distributed, and some areas will be hit worse than others. New York and other cities along the East Coast could see seas rise by more than 1m by the end of the century if the Earth warms by 4 or 5 degrees beyond preindustrial levels. If the rate of carbon emissions continues unabated, the authors said, the globe would warm by 2 degrees and cause significant sea-level rise by 2040. It would be worse along the East Coast of North America and Norway, which are expected to experience a sea-level rise of about 30cm. The relative speed of the sea's rise means many areas won't have time to adapt, researchers found. And from there, warming would accelerate even faster. Two degrees of warming is expected to cause an average global sea-level rise of 20cm, but virtually all coastal areas will see more of a rise, [researcher and lead author of the study Svetlana Jevrejeva], found. If warming exceeds 2 degrees by 2100, as some climate scientists worry it might, about 80 percent of the global coastline could experience a rise in sea levels of 1.8m. Such a rapid rise in sea levels is unprecedented since the dawn of the Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago, according to the study. The research takes further the potential for sea-level rise posed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which argued that sea-level rise of 28cm to 97cm is possible by 2100. Many climate scientists have since claimed that estimate is too conservative.

    Voila!

  • ...eventually, the earth will be *covered* with water, and all the bible literalists will be proved right.

    SUCK IT SCIENCE!

    • No and the word you were looking for is "proven."

      • The word you're looking for is "mistaken"
        http://english.stackexchange.c... [stackexchange.com]
        From the New Oxford American Dictionary:
        "For complex historical reasons, prove developed two past participles: proved and proven. Both are correct and can be used more or less interchangeably: this hasn't been proved yet; this hasn't been proven yet. Proven is the more common form when used as an adjective before the noun it modifies: a proven talent (not a proved talent). Otherwise, the choice between proved and proven is not a matte

  • Until the Republican Headquarters is under water, they won't allow shit to be done about it.

  • So what... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by WaterDamage ( 719017 )
    Yawn...the Earth has been warming since the last ice age. Guess what, we didn't pollute or cause the glaciers to melt either. Blame it on the dinosaurs that emitted carbon dioxide and methane from their gargantuan farts.

    • Yawn...the Earth has been warming since the last ice age. Guess what, we didn't pollute or cause the glaciers to melt either. Blame it on the dinosaurs that emitted carbon dioxide and methane from their gargantuan farts.

      Well, the Earth is currently in a warming phase after the last ice age. That means global average temperatures will continue to rise past the 2 degrees Celsius TFS mentions even if humans never existed and no matter what we do (unless we figure out how to make a P-U 238 Explosive Space Modulator and cause the Earth to disappear with an Earth-shattering Kaboom), a strategy consisting mainly of adaptation (along with efficient but lower-impact CO2 and pollution controls) seems to be the logical strategy. We c

      • Yawn...the Earth has been warming since the last ice age. Guess what, we didn't pollute or cause the glaciers to melt either. Blame it on the dinosaurs that emitted carbon dioxide and methane from their gargantuan farts.

        Well, the Earth is currently in a warming phase after the last ice age.

        No, the warming following the last glaciation finished about ten thousand years ago, and the sea level rise attributable to that is pretty much done. Here's a good graph: cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png [antarcticglaciers.org]

        I will also point out that this is warming and sea-level rise occurring on the time scale of millennia, while the anthropogenic greenhouse effect is on the scale of centuries-- much much faster.

        That means global average temperatures will continue to rise past the 2 degrees Celsius TFS mentions even if humans never existed

        Again, no. We're already in the interglacial period; tempera

        • No, the warming following the last glaciation finished about ten thousand years ago, and the sea level rise attributable to that is pretty much done. Here's a good graph: cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png [antarcticglaciers.org]

          That's one theory. There are others.

          The earth has been in an interglacial period known as the Holocene for more than 11,000 years. It was conventional wisdom that the typical interglacial period lasts about 12,000 years, but this has been called into question recently. For example, an article in Nature[36] argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years. Predicted changes in orbital forcing suggest that the next glacial period would begin at l

          • No, the warming following the last glaciation finished about ten thousand years ago, and the sea level rise attributable to that is pretty much done. Here's a good graph: cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level_rise2.png [antarcticglaciers.org]

            That's one theory. There are others.

            That wasn't a theory. That was data.

            The causes of the quaternary ice age cycle over the last ~3 million years is know in general outline, although as you point out a lot of the details need to be worked out. However, data from hundreds of thousands of years ago is indirect and difficult to interpret. Today, on the other hand, we have very good data: we measure the input and the output. It's cute that you have your own theory that the Earth is warming due to the fact that we're still coming out of the Lat

            • You are mixing up two things. One is "is the science correct, and to what uncertainty?" The other is "what should we do about it, and what would this cost? These are completely different questions. The response "I think that it would cost too much to solve the problem, therefore I will assert that the science is inaccurate and the problem does not exist" is not a logical response.

              No, I am not "mixing up two different things". I am posing two different concepts, the first is that we have no freaking clue what the climate will do over the next 1,000-2,000 years. The second is that the solutions proposed are costly, including a cost in lives lost, across a wide variety of measures. To ask for that level of sacrifice with so little certainty there is a real problem that the proposed actions will actually solve is asking to be shown the door.

              What has happened, right now, is an asymmetric response: so far, the people politically on the left have been proposing possible solutions, while people politically on the right have been refusing to propose solutions or analyze them-- when the problem is discussed, their response has been overwhelming: "the problem doesn't exist and it's a hoax."

              And that's the problem, there is insufficient

              • You are mixing up two things. One is "is the science correct, and to what uncertainty?" The other is "what should we do about it, and what would this cost? These are completely different questions. The response "I think that it would cost too much to solve the problem, therefore I will assert that the science is inaccurate and the problem does not exist" is not a logical response.

                No, I am not "mixing up two different things". I am posing two different concepts, the first is that we have no freaking clue what the climate will do over the next 1,000-2,000 years.

                Yes, you've been asserting that. All I can derive from what you post, however, is that you're saying that you have no freaking clue what the climate will do. The fact that you don't understand climate has no particular bearing on whether other people understand it.

                The second is that the solutions proposed are costly, including a cost in lives lost, across a wide variety of measures. To ask for that level of sacrifice

                You have indeed asserted (without evidence) that every possible solution is costly and require "sacrifice", but you've given no indication that you've looked at every possible solution, nor done even a superficial analysis of cost.

                In any case,

    • ...the Earth has been warming since the last ice age.

      The Earth was slowly cooling for the last 5,000 years or so, right up to when humans started adding large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere. Thank goodness for that, but now we're warm enough.

    • Yawn, the last ice age was well after the dinosaurs were extinct. At least be consistent with your eons you troll flamebaiting mother fuck.

      Note to the russian hacker mod bots who have taken over /. these past few months: if you downmod me for calling the dipshit fuckface goat cock sucking ball tickling fucking shit stain parent poster who dreams of fucking his own mother fucking mother a motherfucker....well...then y'all are hypocrites because we get to say whatever we want and call whoever whatever now tha

  • Two degrees of warming is expected to cause an average global sea-level rise of 8 inches, but virtually all coastal areas will see more of a rise, [researcher and lead author of the study Svetlana Jevrejeva], found.

    If virtually all costal areas will see more of a rise, then 8 inches isn't the average.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by caseih ( 160668 )

      How do you figure that? Are you sure you understand what "average" means? We're talking average sea level rise across the planet. Average means that some parts of the ocean, due to gravity, wave action, earth's rotation, will rise less, and other areas, including coastal areas will rise more.

    • Quoting TFA,

      Here we provide probabilistic sea level rise projections for the global coastline with warming above the 2 C goal. By 2040, with a 2 C warming under the RCP8.5 scenario, more than 90% of coastal areas will experience sea level rise exceeding the global estimate of 0.2 m, with up to 0.4 m expected along the Atlantic coast of North America and Norway.

  • Simple solution is to buy up all that new ocean front property before it becomes valuable. Doubly so when the climate turns mild further north along the east coast during winters. Though holdouts will likely just build up on stilts and try to stay, and south flordia will succeed and become the 51st state as New Venice in 2073.

  • Sea levels will rise even faster (Score:3)

    by frnic ( 98517 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2016 @01:34AM (#53242823)

    If it goes like it looks now, and Trump wins.

    All you climate change deniers - ever think about what is we are right? No problem, it is only the human race...

  • Raising of Chicago (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doppler00 ( 534739 ) on Wednesday November 09, 2016 @01:43AM (#53242833) Homepage Journal

    Wasn't this type of problem solved over 150 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Why isn't this a more reasonable solution vs. shutting down the world's industrial capacity? I know they have done retrofits to sky scrapers for earthquake proofing, so wouldn't the process be similar?

  • Many people feel that the Earth is like a life form that self corrects and balances. If there is any reality to that I wonder if man made warming could actually trigger an ice age as a response.

    • No it won't because warming is great for the biosphere. Eventually the additional biomass will sequester enough carbon to reduce the CO2 levels to lower levels but that's a process that will likely take millions of years. People really don't seem to understand that global warming isn't a threat to life on Earth, it's not even a threat to human life (we are pretty adaptable). That doesn't mean that the eventual flooding of coastal cities and disruption to the food supply wouldn't be major catastrophe that we

  • Lessee here .. global temperatures rise. Ice melts. Ocean levels rise. Doh ... I'm in the wrong business!

    Unless .. if some of that ice is floating on an ocean, and it melts, does that make the ocean level rise? Or fall? Or just dilute it, which changes the specific gravity, but that won't change the levels, just how deep my yacht sinks in it. And how hard whales have to swim to stay afloat!

    Hmmmm .. trickier than I thought.

    • As it happens, there's ice on land, particularly Greenland and Antarctica. If that melts, there's more water in the oceans. If land ice slides into the sea, sea levels go up.

  • Many will claim that Trump is going to make things worse by saying that he will increase coal mining, along with nat gas drilling. Yet, with America's nat gas being at the lowest level, it is impossible for Coal to take on nat gas. Likewise, Tesla EV will continue to sell since the M3 hits in less than year. And considering that you are getting a car that is better than a BMW 300 series, while costing only 35K, means that EVs will grow in sales in a massive way, regardless of Trumps cuts to AE subsidies.
    A

  • Check out the history. We know Romans were growing grapes in England when they were there. Earth was much warmer. Same with the settlements in Greenland that are being exposed now. We're coming out of a mini ice age. It's mother nature.

    Before flaming or marking me a troll or something, look it up. Google "roman grapes england". Know when you're being lied to by a bunch of people that want to take your money.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Layzej ( 1976930 )

      Before flaming or marking me a troll or something, look it up. Google "roman grapes england". Know when you're being lied to by a bunch of people that want to take your money.

      Very sage advise. You could even just Google "grapes England" and find that grapes are still grown in England. But then your last sentence there would seem a tad ironic.

      Regarding our bet, things aren't looking so good for you: http://www.realclimate.org/ind... [realclimate.org]

  • This was an idea I had with my toy ecology lab box but alas! I was not only a boy but there were not these many sources of information, so my hypothesis that the weather might be growing hotter remained unanswered and forgotten. Nowhere implied in the toy, just thinking an if... But now that we are confirming living beings liberate many Greenhouse Effect gases, the obvious solution is to... reduce the number of living beings on Earth! The only question to ask is, then what Continent do we eliminate? I of co
    • Not yet finished writing this and the African clerk in this office comes and wants me out or the police and I am writing this in silence! It certainly suggests I should not buy from here but it is one of the best options available around in Big Location place.

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