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Earth Science

25 Years of Satellite Data Shows Global Warming Is Accelerating Sea Level Rise (usnews.com) 343

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: Melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are speeding up the already fast pace of sea level rise, new satellite research shows. At the current rate, the world's oceans on average will be at least 2 feet (61 centimeters) higher by the end of the century compared to today, according to researchers who published in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Sea level rise is caused by warming of the ocean and melting from glaciers and ice sheets. The research, based on 25 years of satellite data, shows that pace has quickened, mainly from the melting of massive ice sheets. It confirms scientists' computer simulations and is in line with predictions from the United Nations, which releases regular climate change reports. Of the 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) of sea level rise in the past quarter century, about 55 percent is from warmer water expanding, and the rest is from melting ice. But the process is accelerating, and more than three-quarters of that acceleration since 1993 is due to melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, the study shows.
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25 Years of Satellite Data Shows Global Warming Is Accelerating Sea Level Rise

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  • Clearly, this is yet more evidence that the whole thing is just a massive Chinese time travelling zombie conspiracy! They've teamed with the Knights Templar and the Masons to litter the sea floor with cheap, Chinese hair dryers, which are blowing on the ice and melting it! And the fairies, loyal to the Maoist regime, are taking our good western made CO2 from the atmosphere and replacing it with cheap Chinese made CO2! Wake up sheeple!
  • Hypocrites (Score:2, Informative)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 )
    Donald Trump claims global warming is a myth... and yet he's building sea walls for his golf resort in Ireland to protect it against the sea level rising!
    • Not quite accurate (Score:4, Informative)

      by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:57AM (#56113403) Homepage Journal

      Donald Trump claims global warming is a myth... and yet he's building sea walls for his golf resort in Ireland to protect it against the sea level rising!

      He doesn't say it's a myth, he says it's a hoax [snopes.com].

      He agrees that the climate is changing, but believes that it's not due to man-made changes in the environment.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by quantaman ( 517394 )

        Donald Trump claims global warming is a myth... and yet he's building sea walls for his golf resort in Ireland to protect it against the sea level rising!

        He doesn't say it's a myth, he says it's a hoax [snopes.com].

        He agrees that the climate is changing, but believes that it's not due to man-made changes in the environment.

        Trump never said climate is changing, Kellyanne Conway claimed he believed that, which is completely in line with their standard practice of spinning Trump's outrageous statements into orthodox GOP doctrine.

        Conway tells us nothing about what Trump believes, Trump is absolutely notorious for contradicting his administration's official positions, his spokespeople, and even himself.

        Trump only ever has two kinds of comments about climate change, either some variation of "it's a hoax" or "it's cold, therefore no

      • I mean if a pyroman set a barn is on fire, and a denier pretend the warmth is due to hot summer time the other pretend barn on fire is a natural occurrence, does it matter ? They are both wrong, and in the end you gotta stop the fire anyway.
      • And in the end it doesn't matter. The climate doesn't care about the whims or opinions of the annoying orange.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        From your own link:

        NBC News just called it the great freeze - coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?

        Snowing in Texas and Louisiana, record setting freezing temperatures throughout the country and beyond. Global warming is an expensive hoax!

        Ice storm rolls from Texas to Tennessee - I'm in Los Angeles and it's freezing. Global warming is a total, and very expensive, hoax!

        Trump really doesn't seem to think that the world is warming, or at least doesn't understand the different between weather and climate. Maybe he has changed his tune since those tweets were posted.

  • Satellites? Show me the guy with a beard, surrounded by pairs of animals, and building a big wood boat. Hell, it's not even raining yet.
    • The Raft is coming, are you going to be prepared, or shocked?! Sea levels rise, poor people have to learn to float. Simple.

      Read your Neal Stephenson! The Raft is coming!

      • The Raft is coming, are you going to be prepared, or shocked?! Sea levels rise, poor people have to learn to float. Simple. Read your Neal Stephenson! The Raft is coming!

        No worries. I'm sure they will listen to Reason.

  • Meh. (Score:5, Funny)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:15AM (#56113237)
    I don't (can't afford to) live that close to an ocean, you insensitive clod.

    (But I'm thinking that an investment in property on Lake Superior or Hudson Bay may pay off as the next French Riviera. Kashechewan=Monaco?)
  • yes, but few care (Score:4, Informative)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:18AM (#56113249) Journal
    Seriously. The only way to stop the CO2 is to have ALL NATIONS STOP ADDING COAL and back off rather quickly. This is ESP TRUE for China. Yet, there will be many here (including a chinese troll that follows me) that will actually DEFEND China's adding 750+ GW of new coal plants over the next 11 years. And that is just CHINA. That does not include the large number of extra coal going in, nor does it include the massive number of ICE vehicles being sold.
    If ppl want to stop this, then ALL NATIONS MUST STOP. Not just 1 or 2.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Hal_Porter ( 817932 )

      Getting a net CO2 cut would basically require that China stop industrialising. If the Chinese government tried that, they'd be overthrown in a bloody revolution

      https://photos.mongabay.com/09... [mongabay.com]

      tl;dr - global CO2 emissions will continue to rise until China has a way to generate energy which is cheaper than coal and doesn't emit CO2.

      Until then it doesn't matter what the US, UK and EU do. All of those having falling CO2 emissions, but there's no way they can fall fast enough to compensate for the enormous CO2

      • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @12:42AM (#56113345) Journal
        No longer adding NEW COAL plants will not lead to any issues. In fact, it would likely increase the lifespan of more citizens.
        As to cutting coal, far better to simply replace those with AE and Nukes.
        And I fully agree with your last bit there.
        Right now, the ENTIRE WEST puts out less CO2 than what China is adding JUST IN COAL PLANTS over the next 10 years.
        • No longer adding NEW COAL plants will not lead to any issues. In fact, it would likely increase the lifespan of more citizens.

          Utter horseshit. Their population is not decreasing.

          Just over the last year, when they made a promise to reduce coal use to reduce CO2, they had to back off on their promise because people were freezing to death.

          Read the newspapers.

          • You just proved his point, which was coal increases Chinese lifespans, for several reasons from simple heating to a powerful economy allowing the leaving of a dirt-floored existence.

            Compared to that, worrying about sea rise is a foolish thing, and to hamper growth is murderous.

            Few if any will die due to sea rise. Millions continue to die annually from need and want.

            I'm ready for my downmod, Mr. DeMille.

        • Right now, the ENTIRE WEST puts out less CO2 than what China is adding JUST IN COAL PLANTS over the next 10 years.

          Major fucking citation required. The EU+USA emissions alone are higher than that of China. The worst case prediction for China peaking in 2035 shows that the emissions at that time will be only marginally higher than those of the EU+USA and then will fall at a far higher rate than the west will ever achieve as their old coal plants come online.

          The rising emissions in China over the next 30 years are predicted to be small compared to the rise between 1995-2010 and China's coal demand is plummeting, something

      • by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "tl;dr - global CO2 emissions will continue to rise until China has a way to generate energy which is cheaper than coal and doesn't emit CO2."

        Oh, fucking please. They could've utterly stopped using coal with the pure amount of solar panels they produced and sold in the past ten years with their fucking rigging of the REE market.

        • They could've utterly stopped using coal with the pure amount of solar panels they produced and sold in the past ten years with their fucking rigging of the REE market.

          China added 3000 TWh of generation capacity from 2000 to 2014

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Meanwhile if you look here at global energy consumption by source renewables are very small percentage. The reason for that is because all the increase is in places like China and India, and people there can only afford fossil fuels.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • by Uberbah ( 647458 )

        Getting a net CO2 cut would basically require that China stop industrialising. If the Chinese government tried that, they'd be overthrown in a bloody revolution

        Ah, yes. Pretending that China with 4-5 times the population of the United States is the problem, and then ignoring that much of China's pollution comes from producing crap for American consumers.

      • by nagora ( 177841 )

        If the fascist Chinese government hasn't been overthrown in a bloody revolution by now, I don't think the issue is industrialisation. It's not like the peasants in 1980 were standing around and agreeing not to hurl themselves at the tanks because they'd heard that there might be a new textile sweatshop opening soon.

      • In a nutshell, when the question is economy or ecology, I guess we have to buy a new planet.

      • That's an interesting graph. Curious that it doesn't show the sudden drop in emissions from China in 2010 that happened due to a mix of economic crisis, lower steel demand and loss of appetite for dirty coal projects. Nor does your graph show that Chinese emissions are growing at almost 1/5th of the rate that they were 10 years ago. Nor do they show that emissions per GDP are plummeting (a sign that dirty industrialization of a 3rd world nation has already peaked).

        Until then it doesn't matter what the US, UK and EU do.

        Yes because somewhere someone else is produ

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by BlueStrat ( 756137 )

          Yes because somewhere someone else is producing 1/5th of the emissions per capita of the people in the USA it is all *their* fault and we can't do anything.
          "America First! ... in emissions per capita".

          Per capita is meaningless in relation to *TOTAL GLOBAL* levels. But you likely already know that and are simply hoping you can blow it by others because 'muh Party!'.

          Australia has a very high CO2 per capita average, but a small total population so the total amount of CO2 Australia contributes is small. China and India have a low per-capita average but enormous populations, so they contribute a large percentage of the total CO2 released. Sort of a CO2 emission "economy of scale'.

          China, India, and other devel

      • This is wrong. In fact, China's CO2 production has gone down https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28022017/chinas-co2-reduction-clean-energy-trump-us [insideclimatenews.org], and this is in part because they've managed to do exactly what you think would trigger a revolution, namely by reducing their coal burning amount http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/01/china%E2%80%99s-decline-coal-consumption-drives-global-slowdown-emissions [wri.org].
      • Until then it doesn't matter what the US, UK and EU do. All of those having falling CO2 emissions

        Cite? The best information I can find shows the US emissions as flat over the last few years (emissions from power generation have fallen a bit, but total emissions have not). Your graph shows that they're expected to keep climbing (albeit slower than China). Yes, China needs to reduce emissions, but everything I see shows that they're working far harder at it than we are. Your graph was based on 2009 data, and in the last 2-3 years China has begun investing extremely heavily in solar and wind, more than an

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Look up some of Kevin Anderson's presentations. To keep below the carbon budget for 2C the industrialized world would have to decarbonize steeply. Not gonna happen. And that's without considering global dimming which is good for about 1C. IOW, 3C are in the pipeline even with an extreme effort.

      • Look up some of Kevin Anderson's presentations. To keep below the carbon budget for 2C the industrialized world would have to decarbonize steeply. Not gonna happen. And that's without considering global dimming which is good for about 1C. IOW, 3C are in the pipeline even with an extreme effort.

        So you're saying we're fucked, and we don't have the existential will to un-fuck ourselves?

        We deserve to go extinct.

        • look, there is little chance that going up 3C will lead to Human extinction.
          It WILL lead to a lot of war esp. between nations. I fully expect China to steal Pakistan, India, and South East Asia's water. When that happens, Shit will hit the fans.
          • Generally, I agree with you.
            But I'm not sure anyone knows right where the line of warming is that enough factors add up to the collapse of our civilization. At that point, extinction is a lot more likely.
            It's not hard to imagine the right large bread basket becoming barren, leading to the right set of total wars, pulling in the right set of allied nations for us to tear it all down. And while I'm quite certain whatever is left over will do just fine with its own devices to rebuild... There's simply a smal
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      China hit peak coal a few years ago and has been in decline ever since.

      http://ieefa.org/ieefa-update-... [ieefa.org] (article from a year ago, so 4 years past now)

      The new plants are just replacing old ones with cleaner technology and better load following capability to back up wind.

    • The only way to stop the CO2 is to have ALL NATIONS STOP ADDING COAL and back off rather quickly.

      That's far from enough.

      Note that the assumptions underlying the Paris accord include the notion that we (soon) not only dramatically reduce the CO2 we put into the atmosphere, but that we actually start removing and sequestering large quantities. We have no real idea how to do that, and while we've begun scaling back emissions (well, slowed the rate of increase) we haven't even started seriously extracting CO2.

      We need to look at the problem holistically, as a geoengineering problem, not just as an emiss

    • by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @10:37AM (#56115295) Homepage

      If ppl want to stop this, then ALL NATIONS MUST STOP. Not just 1 or 2.

      And that will never happen. I see a lot of talk about China in this thread but Russia is the #2 emitter of pollution. The US is reducing emissions, both per-capita and overall. Russia's emissions per GDP are increasing (albeit not as rapidly as China). Here's a nice graph of emissions per capita for the top 3 [google.com]. The difference is that China is seeing a lot of negative effects related to pollution, and politicians are under pressure to fix the problem or risk destabilizing the country. China has incentives to act.

      Russia, on the other hand, doesn't have many developed low-lying coastal areas. Weather patterns are becoming more habitable, arable land is increasing, icecaps limiting shipping are melting, more natural resources (fishing, oilfields, etc) are becoming accessible, etc. Climate change may cost Russia's economic competitors in both money and political stability. A decent chunk of the Russian economy is based on oil and natural gas exports. Many other countries have some of these incentives, but Russia is the big winner of climate change, and they have every incentive not to take action. I would not be at all surprised if Russia was actively promoting anti-climate change ideology. They have a strong motive, means, and opportunity.

      Disclaimer- I am an engineer in the North American fossil fuel industry

  • Did anyone see this article in Bloomberg:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

    It says the "worst case scenario" is preposterous.

    "For example, the most extreme worst-case storyline assumes that by 2100 coal would grow to 94 percent of the world energy supply. In 2015, that figure was about 28 percent."

    "One big problem with the amount of coal burning assumed by RCP8.5 is that there’s probably not enough extractable coal to make the scenario possible. “We don’t think it’s going to happen,

  • Now! I am a true believer in climate change and for the most part man caused!

    Here is my question, When is anyone, a group, a corporation, a government? Going to propose how the human race takes, Over Control of our Planets Climate? And release all the projected Cultural, Economic, Personal/Business/Government Costs, who will profit along with the social ramifications.
    I mean it seems the goal here is to save individuals/cities/ports/countries at sea level from seeing any environmental impact or the need
  • Assumptions? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @03:23AM (#56113769) Homepage

    I just read the abstract. As I understand it, they have 25 data years of very noisy data. Based on this data, they have deduced a quadratic equation (think: upward-curving parabola). They then state: "simple extrapolation of the quadratic implies global mean sea level could rise 65 ± 12 cm by 2100".

    Of course, extrapolation of a quadratic leads to massive increases in the Y-value. Any kid doing 9th grade geometry learns that. The question is: Why should we believe that this quadratic equation - derived from so few data points - is accurate, and wil continue unabated into the future?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You are somewhat right. This is the first study to claim an upward trend in the rate of change.

      Meanwhile, in mainstream science, there has been dozens of papers and theories trying to describe how a steady increase of slightly more than three millimeters per year could have happened. This is what the entirety of our precise data, the satellite data set, shows. The stark linearity has made quite a stir.

      Either the satellites are miscalibrated in some unknown, novel way, the rate of thermal expansion is increa

  • Global Warming deniers sure love to be Anonymous Cowards when they're blathering their anti-science bullshit.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday February 13, 2018 @10:30AM (#56115239) Journal
    The annual deep frost would kill so much of the weeds and the bugs. As the climate changes, the USDA agricultural zones are changing. What used to be 3 is now 4 etc. Weeds that were killed every winter and start from the scratch, survive the winter, start early and spread fast. They even get two or three more generations per season.

    The bugs too, are surviving winter. The most ardent climate change denying, conspiracy theory believing, Iowa farmer sees the forsythia blooming in February, tulips emerging in March, crocus in December... Some fields naturalized by daffodils and tulips are going the other way. The bulbs rotting away instead of emerging. These bulbs need six weeks of continuous freezing for them to "sense" the coming and going of winter. Without the frost, they dont emerge and they rot in spring rains.

    One of the most productive agricultural belt is protected by annual frost. It has no natural defense against many of the deleterious organisms. All it takes is one fungus, one virus, one weed to afflict the Idaho potato crop or the corn or wheat... By the time we identify and mitigate the threat we would have lost two or even three years of loss of agricultural productivity. Affluent USA will suck the products from rest of the world, prices will shoot up beyond belief. Poor countries with unstable regimes will see societal collapse, mass migrations and refugees...

    These consequences are far more dire, far more urgent than sea level rise. Sea level rise is important it will lead to very serious climate changes. But that is very indirect and direct cause - effect relations difficult to deduce, difficult to prove, difficult to explain to public.

  • ... it's been rising since Beringia [wikipedia.org]. And the rate of change was much higher then than now. So we're just getting back to the norm.

    Since there were no SUVs or coal plants back then, I'm laying the blame on Native American campfires.

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