Rising Seas Likely to Flood U.S. History
Ultimately, rising seas will likely swamp the first American settlement in Jamestown, Va., as well as the Florida launch pad that sent the first American into orbit, many climate scientists are predicting.
In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.
Global warming — through a combination of melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warmer waters expanding — is expected to cause oceans to rise by one meter, or about 39 inches. It will happen regardless of any future actions to curb greenhouse gases, several leading scientists say. And it will reshape the nation.
Rising waters will lap at the foundations of old money Wall Street and the new money towers of Silicon Valley. They will swamp the locations of big city airports and major interstate highways.
[…]
Few of the more than two dozen climate experts interviewed disagree with the one-meter projection. […] “It’s going to happen no matter what — the question is when.”
Here’s is what a number of US cities can expect.
And then, looking a little further out, oh, say, 250 million years, here’s what we find (for different reasons, of course):
In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased.
Obviously written by someone who live on the coast. The millions of us that live in the heartland of the country have nothing to do with making America what it is.
Stupid question. When you have a bucket of water amd you put a block of ice in it, the water level goes up. 3/4 of the ice is sticking out of the water. As the ice melts, the water level goes down.
How is the earth warming going to make this happen?
It occurs to me that since most of the folks who have no comprehension of science or scientific methods usually have their head in the sand – hopefully that means they’re at a beach – and they will be the first to drown.
Darwin wins again.
Well, thanks to #2 for proving my point. Uh, Dave – a significant portion of the ice that’s melting sits on land – not on water. I guess they haven’t any glaciers in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
4–moss, don’t be so naive. No one could be as stupid as Dave is posting, other than IGW? No, obvious troll.
Can you people comprehend the amount of worldwide devastation this will cause?
I’ve seen estimates that 2/3 of humanity live along coastlines…
One might say with global warming climate research what are we studying the elephant, or its tail, trunk, legs and so on. Our climate is influenced by many factors far beyond CO2 levels. CO2 is the elephant’s tail.
Sea levels rising and ice caps melting has happened before not so long ago so why should there be any surprise when it happens again. I am speaking of the Ice Ages and the periods in between them – which we are in now.
The bigger issue to me and others is global warming is only a part of a much bigger picture of cycles of glaciation and warming (Ice Ages) which have been documented as occurring but the mechanism behind it is still conjecture. The Ice age cycle seem to follow a 40,000 / 100,000 year period.
Ice ages are common knowledge even to children but no one seems to wonder how is it possible for 97% of Canada and most of the Northern States of America could have an ice sheet up to 2 MILES THICK only 13,000 years ago. If that is not enough it all melted away possibly in just a few decades. Doesn’t rate a “Holy Shit!”?
During the last Ice Age what is now the Sahara desert had a lush temperate climate with many rivers which have been revealed by satellite ground penetrating radar. Parts of Antarctica was temperate, northern Siberia which now is all ice and tundra was temperate as well. Mammoths found frozen in the permafrost with food still in its mouth – grass and buttercups as well as frozen fruit trees, ferns etc.
Then about 12,000 years ago the global climate turned around on a dime in such as small period of time – possibly decades and here we are discussing our CO2 emissions and how WE are screwing up the climate.
This is why I am not drinking the global warming cool aid – I am 50/50. In recent history only 12,000 years ago global climate had a complete reversal on a scale unimaginable today and humanity had nothing to do with it. What if instead of ‘cavemen’ living back then it was us? Would we have been able to do anything about it? Doesn’t that raise any questions? It does with me.
When you read about the Ice Ages, global warming in my opinion becomes trivialised.
Cheers
#2 Still laughing my ass off at your obvious ignorance and lack of schooling. Redo your experiment with your bucket and a RULER.
Start with a glass of water and an ice cube, then scale up.
#7 Of course it happened rather fast – that’s what a runaway system does. All those billions of tons of Mammoth Poo trapped in no-longer-permafrost is going to heat us up even more.
As for the rest – it’s typical of Humanity to say “It’s not my problem” until it becomes their problem.
How long does it take to change a busy street corner with Stop Signs to Traffic Lights?
A: A few deaths – especially young ones
7==Great post. Very reasonable. Yet–as “we” (as in we human beings on earth today and our successors) ARE involved in human scale time events, the difference in “causing” ice to melt in 100-200 years instead of 10,000 to 15000 years is relevant? And given that another ice age is likely in 10-15-20 K years, that is no reason not to learn to moderate the fluxuations if we can?
But yes, I don’t have the same “save the world” expectations I had a few months ago.
that picture is rather dishonest , The Aral sea has been shrinking for decades because of diversion for agriculture not from global warming. Also for the tree huggers new studies show more higher levels of water in our atmosphere than has been recorded is modern history proving that the system is self regulating (more moisture more clouds , clouds reflect sunlight and thus cool the planet )
#9 Bobbo – The last Ice Age finished 10 ~ 15,000 years. However it didn’t take that long for the ice to melt. it has been estimated to be as short as a just few decades for 2 miles of ice covering Canada and northern US to melt. That’s a ‘HOLY SHIT’ in my book.
This was climate turning around on a dime as I said. Where it was warm and temperate was very suddenly cold and freezing and where it was cold and freezing was now warm and temperate.
Aside from the Ice Ages the Earth has gone through what has been called the “Snowball” ages where it was all cold as well as all warm with minimum ice.
The Arctic ocean was once free of ice – sediment core samples as shown this.
Those very same ice core samples which indicate CO2 levels also indicate glaciation (Ice Ages) inter-glaciation periods (warm ages). This is why I said that global warming climate policy seems fixated on human influences such as CO2 and other by products of fossil fuel combustion – the elephant metaphor.
The 1883 Krakatoa eruption in an instant injected cubic miles, millions of tons of greenhouse gases, and aerosols into the stratosphere so by our modelling of global warming today there should have been a measurable increase global temperatures.
There wasn’t – temperatures fell, the year without a summer.
So I here I sit 50/50, trying to comprehend an elephant.
Cheers
#2 Dave
Sometimes I wonder if collectively, we’re smarter than a fifth grader or if we’re somehow being forced to follow the American entertainment industry practice of catering to the lowest common denominator?
Moe, how do you know that this would cause devastation. Global warming wouldn’t lead to a sudden flood and drowning of the people on the coast. Most likely sea level rise would be gradual, and the people on the coast will move.
Also, the theory that says there will be so much sea level rise, it assumes a large amount of CO2 being released, which in turn means a great deal of economic development by the third world. Well, a very wealthy thrid world will handle sea level rise just fine, so there won’t be as much devastation as predicted. The models are inherently flawed in their conclusions.
11–Tihz. Hadn’t heard of the glaciers melting THAT fast, but volcanic eruptions, solar flares, intergalactic warfare couild account for that “I guess?”
Still, what has happened in the past is not THE model for what is happening now nor in the future, only an example of what “can” happen. So, today, I take the consensus climate position==we can moderate global warming expecially if we start NOW.
Course, we ain’t gonna do it, so write the eulogy for our civilization “as we know it” and place it in a water tight container.
>>The millions of us that live in the heartland of the country have
>>nothing to do with making America what it is.
Sure ya do. A disheartening large number of youse voted for Little King Georgie. Welcome to your legacy.
Freeman Dyson: More Heretics Needed, Don’t Sweat the CO2
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/08/freeman-dyson-m.html
The words of Freeman Dyson.
So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. That is why heretics who question the dogmas are needed.
Most likely sea level rise would be gradual, and the people on the coast will move.
They won’t move. They’ll stay where they are and bitch because the government isn’t building a strong enough wall to keep out the oceans.
#14 “Hadn’t heard of the glaciers melting THAT fast”
Yes, you and me both, but that is what I have read from many sources.
Here is an interesting web site from the University of California.
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/03_1.shtml
“As it stands, the rapid rise of carbon dioxide during the deglaciation periods is unexplained and not for want of trying by many geochemists. This means, in fact, that we cannot predict how the ocean will react to warming, with regard to emission of carbon dioxide from the sea to the air or a decrease in the uptake of industrial carbon dioxide. All we can say is that, over the last 400,000 years, there seems to have been a positive feedback at work: whenever the climate became warmer, carbon dioxide and methane rose and helped make the climate even warmer.
Some scientists go even further. They say that carbon dioxide rose first, before the warming, and that this is proof that carbon dioxide drives the warming. A rise in carbon dioxide might indeed be the first thing to happen at the beginning of deglaciation. But perhaps the initial rise of carbon dioxide is like the initial gathering of the clouds announcing a storm. The clouds do not make the storm; they show that the process has begun and that the system is ready to change.
Contemplating the Elephant…
Cheers
18–I don’t know, but what comes to mind is that as oceans warm the seabed methane gets released in huge quantities, but that should all be evidenced in the ice cores? So, STILL==unknown relationships exist and we don’t know what we are doing EXCEPT man made carbon does contaminate and contribute a greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
The room may be dark, that may be an elephant, but still one would hope we can tell the difference between a leg, a tail, and a – – – – – -ewe!!!
PS–you don’t have any right to American TV/movies when you’re in China. What a lame excuse for piracy. Course, I’d do it, but I wouldn’t justify it beyond a loud Aarggh!!
#2 – Interesting.
Ice is actually less dense than water by about 8-10%.
I live in San Diego. All last week we heard how it was going to rain and we were going to get the worst storm since 1986. Well it never happened.
If they cant tell me the weather 3 days ahead, I am sure they are clueless as to what it will be in 50 years.
#11
The eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815 caused the “year without a summer.” in 1816. Your point is valid in that the dust ejected from Tambora (and Krakatoa) did cause periods of global cooling.
andrew, they can tell you what the climate will be months ahead of time. Don’t confuse weather for a day with average weather. That said, the modeling hasn’t held up well at all.
Mother Earth has evolved a creature capable of returning the Earth to a more temperate (pre Chicxulub impact) climate. Now these creatures decide to go against her by stopping the very process which they were designed for? Hubris I tell you! Let the warming continue!
Anyone willing to go 50/50 on a Citrus orchard on the Montana/Alberta border? 😀
Seems to be global warming could be prevented by ejecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere.
#26 Seems to be global warming could be prevented by ejecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere.
Just like in The Matrix… 🙂
Yeah, thats part of the perception problem.
We were all warned about “global cooling” in the 70s – due to the amount of aerosols being released into the atmosphere [and/or the “nuclear winter” caused by aerosols tossed-into the air if the Cold War ever got hot…]
Now that aerosol pollution has been reduced, we are being warned about “global warming” due to green-house gases.
Its no surprise people are scratching their heads & saying: “warming”?? weren’t you just harping-on about “cooling”??
And its compounded by so many people arguing about whether the measured trend is being caused/accelerated by human activity, or is just part of the documented climate-cycle of our planet.
Doesn’t matter if climate has “turned on a dime” in the past, or if it is a natural cycle… why aren’t we having serious discussions about what will happen if the trend continues – i.e. the linked maps?
But I know us, we’ll wait under there is a call for emergency-funding to erect a New Orleans-style system of levees & pumps in Manhattan. 😛
#1,
What what part of SOME are you having difficulty?
#2 – Dave,
You’re right. That is a stupid question. Try the experiment this way. Fill a bucket 3/4 with water. Suspend the ice cubes from a full tray of cubes above the water to simulate the ice on land, e.g. Greenland, Antarctica, etc. Make sure the water is also cooler than the air temperature. As the ice melts and the cool water in your bucket warms, what happens to the water level?
I’ll look back at the rest of the comments in the morning. I just couldn’t believe these first two.
Oh, and bobbo, while I obviously agree with you, I would say it’s a tad impolite to insult iGW before he gets into the fray. Once he does though …
#2, Dave,
When you have a bucket of water amd you put a block of ice in it, the water level goes up. 3/4 of the ice is sticking out of the water. As the ice melts, the water level goes down.
Dave, Dave, Dave, I think your fractions are a little out of whack. ¾ of the ice doesn’t sit about the water level. The fraction of ice poking out of the water will be about 1/9 to 1/10 of the total volume of ice, depending upon both ice and water temperature.
As water freezes (solidifies) it expands about 10%. That makes it less dense than water and thus it will float.
The ice above the surface plus the amount under the surface will always equal the volume of water displaced by the ice beneath the surface.
As the ice melts in a glass, the water level will NOT change. This is because as the ice becomes water its density changes to that of the water it displaced.
RE #29, Oopps, that should have been
3/4 of the ice doesn’t sit above the water level
#15, MM,
Where do you get this “WE” white guy ???