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Science

New Science Suggests the Ocean Could Rise More -- and Faster -- Than We Thought (washingtonpost.com) 204

Chris Mooney, writing for the Washington Post: Climate change could lead to sea level rises that are larger, and happen more rapidly, than previously thought, according to a trio of new studies that reflect mounting concerns about the stability of polar ice. In one case, the research suggests that previous high end projections (PDF) for sea level rise by the year 2100 -- a little over three feet -- could be too low, substituting numbers as high as six feet at the extreme if the world continues to burn large volumes of fossil fuels throughout the century (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled). "We have the potential to have much more sea level rise under high emissions scenarios," said Alexander Nauels, a researcher at the University of Melbourne in Australia who led one of the three studies. His work, co-authored with researchers at institutions in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, was published Thursday in Environmental Research Letters. The results comprise both novel scientific observations -- based on high resolution seafloor imaging techniques that give a new window on past sea level events -- and new modeling techniques based on a better understanding of Antarctic ice. Further reading: Sea levels to rise 1.3m unless coal power ends by 2050, report says (The Guardian).
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New Science Suggests the Ocean Could Rise More -- and Faster -- Than We Thought

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  • by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Thursday October 26, 2017 @02:50PM (#55438893)

    Goodbye Florida. I will miss you.

    • That mosquito-infested hellhole? Not me. Good riddance.
    • Goodbye "Florida man".. good riddance.
      It'd be a shame to lose Disney and Universal though.

      • Goodbye "Florida man".. good riddance. It'd be a shame to lose Disney and Universal though.

        Really? Waste of space we could be growing oranges in if you ask me...

    • Re:Goodbye Florida (Score:4, Interesting)

      by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Thursday October 26, 2017 @05:47PM (#55440389) Homepage Journal

      An additional 3 feet means most of Florida won't have drinkable water and will increase storm surge damage from every 2-3 year "500 year" storms.

      If you can build to that standard: bottom level not for living, more resistant buildings, power systems that can operate offline for 1-2 weeks (e.g. high grade roof solar like Tesla, mobile solar, mobile wind turbines), than you're good.

      The main problem is people want to be bailed out when these events happen, but we will have to stop providing insurance guarantees in Florida on the whole, with zero exceptions, not just home and boat but auto.

      That's what this means.

      Me, I'll have waterfront property in Seattle with a great view.

  • I'm pretty damn sure that the world ended in 2015 just like they predicted.

    https://www.mrctv.org/videos/f... [mrctv.org]

    If you don't believe that New York was underwater 24/7/365 BECAUSE CLIMATE CHANGE they clearly you are a science denier.

    • by DogDude ( 805747 )
      That video you linked to was remarkably accurate. ("More floods, more intense hurricanes, more fires") What point were you trying to make with that?
      • by sexconker ( 1179573 ) on Thursday October 26, 2017 @03:55PM (#55439431)

        We haven't had a hurricane season worth a damn since Katrina, actually. Hurricanes have been tame as shit until this year. (And don't get me started on "Superstorm Sandy", which wasn't even a hurricane when it hit New York. It only cost so much because NYC was unprepared, and it was hyped up because it was NYC and the media fucking LOVES NYC.)

        As for fires, California is ALWAYS on fire.

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          As for California, you can blame the anti-Timber environmentalists who are "protecting" the forests from evil men.

          1) They refuse to let minor fires burn out the underbrush and douse them immediately.
          2) They don't let Timber Industry harvest trees to thin out the forest.

          Basically they do everything wrong and then blame everyone else for the result.

          • by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Or you can blame the real reason which is long dry summers. I know it's easy for you to make up left wing boogy men but the natural ecology of the region just lends itself to large forest fires.

        • by Xyrus ( 755017 )

          No, hurricane seasons haven't been "tame as shit". Hurricanes have hit other areas. Hurricanes have gone out to sea. But hurricanes didn't suddenly "stop". You just didn't hear about them because they weren't hitting the US.

          Superstorm Sandy was a hybrid tropical system, transitioning to extratropical. The reason it cost so much was because there was no way TO PREPARE. What, you think they could erect a 6 foot sea wall along all of New York in a span of days? You think New York was the only place to suffer d

        • Katrina caused less property damage than the hurricane a couple of years later. The big problem with Katrina was that it caused a collapse of a chunk of the insurance industry. Several (six, I think) insurance companies went out of business because they had incorrectly modelled systematic risk: they thought they had a diversified portfolio of risk, but didn't take into account that several of the things that they'd insured against either caused each other or had the same cause. The insurance industry (we

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I'm pretty damn sure that the world ended in 2015 just like they predicted.

      Close, the Orange Dude was elected in 2016.

  • Due to a typical but very strange bit of human psychology, I both have difficulty believing the world will actually change significantly in my lifetime while simultaneously wanting to see some kind of apocalypse (under the assumption I somehow manage to survive and thrive post-apocalypse).

    I mean, it's worth the end of the world as we know it just to be able to gloat to the survivors that I was right, isn't it?

    • People are trying to do responsible things to mitigate the problems for future generations i.e grandchildren. Some people are good that way and some are too self-centred and selfish to care about anyone other than themselves.
  • by MindPrison ( 864299 ) on Thursday October 26, 2017 @03:00PM (#55438965) Journal

    ...it's overpriced, it's over-hyped. Beach property, near the sea, near the beach, near a pond - and cost 3-10 times as much as a normal property. You're investing badly, and you're gonna find out the hard way.

    I already knew this when I moved from Denmark to another country (several Danish cities is suffering from the ocean eating up the ground, and houses are constantly falling into the sea when the ground gets eaten up by the sea). I now live 80m above sea level - and 10 times cheaper, with the same solid building.

    To quote Nelson from the Simpsons -> "Ha haa!".

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Except the price has only gone up. Yes, longterm, like say, the year 2100, beachfront property will have been a bad investment. But for now, you can buy it, enjoy the beach, then sell in ten years for a nice profit.

    • Yeah, now if the world will just embrace the idea of inland ports.....
      • Inland ports aren't quite as silly as they sound. West Sacramento built a channel to become a deep water ship port.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And I live by the river
  • How many different studies will we have that don't agree about what's happening before we realize that we don't really know?

    Somebody needs to make a study about how many *different* conclusions have been made in the last 20 years and how those studies have faired when compared to reality. I'm just going to guess that two things are true. 1. The ones the press cover and are most often cited by activists are the most inaccurate over time. And 2. Not one study, if old enough to verify, shows the dire conse

    • by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Thursday October 26, 2017 @05:42PM (#55440357) Homepage

      Somebody needs to make a study about how many *different* conclusions have been made in the last 20 years and how those studies have faired when compared to reality.

      That's been done. Read the IPCC report. And I mean, actually read it. They do a lot of comparing different models.

      I'm just going to guess that two things are true. 1. The ones the press cover and are most often cited by activists are the most inaccurate over time.

      Now, that has an element of truth in it: the press likes catastrophe, so they tend to emphasize the flamboyant studies, and write headlines that make them sound even more dire. It's only two or three paragraphs in that they mention the actual consensus.

      And 2. Not one study, if old enough to verify, shows the dire consequences we are routinely told about.

      I've been graphing the predicted temperatures from the oldest greenhouse effect models (Manabe & Wetherald, and the original NAS report), and they have been matching the actual temperatures to well within error bars. So, on this one, no, the studies "old enough to verify" actually do check out pretty well.

  • Many nuclear plants are quite close to the shore, and will have trouble operating during storms with an ocean level 1.8 meters higher than today.

    If operators do not understand when the plant should be shut down for safety, we will have more Fukushima-style episodes.

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

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