Climate Change Causes Sea Level Rise to Accelerate 50 Percent in Past 20 years

[Thepersona]

Not only are those more pressing issues but they are actually real issues.

Uhm, the wall is stupid beyond measure (firstly, because of the construction).
when climate change refugees appear (and they will be millions), no wall will be tall enough to contain them

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Shouldn't this thread be in the politics sub forum? Climate change is really more of a political "issue" than a scientific or any other issue.

Climate change is a scientific issue (as is true, and probable)
Climate change actions are political

[Nihilist74]

Cool, those cities can adapt over the next century. If they want to.

I liked those red mars blue mars books.

[Orbitus]

Poor you, sir. Poor you.

Poor me? For what? I am not the one that can't post conspiracy theories like you want to.

[Endus]

Isn't the average temperature of the planet stable since 1998 ?

The global warming "pause" claim was a deliberate bit of malicious propaganda, nothing more. There was no "pause". 1998 was a particularly warm year, but yearly temperatures vary up and down; climate is the long-term trend.

They dishonestly tried to take that high yearly temperature, use it as if it were the average temperature, and then drew a line to a particularly cold year 18 years later, and then lied about what their manipulations meant.

Here's the fundamentals of the lie they're perpetrating, in animated graph form;

[Thepersona]

The global warming "pause" claim was a deliberate bit of malicious propaganda, nothing more. There was no "pause". 1998 was a particularly warm year, but yearly temperatures vary up and down; climate is the long-term trend.

They dishonestly tried to take that high yearly temperature, use it as if it were the average temperature, and then drew a line to a particularly cold year 18 years later, and then lied about what their manipulations meant.

Here's the fundamentals of the lie they're perpetrating, in animated graph form;

You mean, that climate Change Skeptics (otherwise know as imbeciles) dont know how to run a linear regression in STATA? or in excel?

[Jeezy911]

And the main point to be had there is that adaptation is an expensive and long-term project, and needs to be proactive to be effective, not reactive.

You can't wait till the flooding in 2100 to start to do something. You need to make changes now to prevent or mitigate the flooding between now and then, and beyond. And that adaptation process will be ongoing. And expensive. Just significantly less expensive than the damages caused by potential flooding.

Why do we need to do something now (code for spend tons of money and increase taxes) for something that could happen in 200 years? Wouldn't 20 years out be better when we can actually tell how far the water will rise accurately?

[Orbitus]

Why do we need to do something now (code for spend tons of money and increase taxes) for something that could happen in 200 years? Wouldn't 20 years out be better when we can actually tell how far the water will rise accurately?

You do know, the longer you spread the damage out, the less it would cost in the long run right? Anything we do now, would instead of making it happen 200 years from now, it might happen 500 years from now.

[Logwyn]

A few critical points;

First:

We're already past the tipping point in terms of CO2 emissions; unless we find a way to scrub it out of the atmosphere (all proposals with any chance of having an effect are priced in, literally, tens of trillions of dollars or more) or reduce sunlight hitting the Earth (big orbital mirrors or something, again, MASSIVE investment cost, and huge secondary effects on plant growth to boot), without something like that, warming will continue, and it will tend to accelerate, since there are exacerbating factors that pile on;
- Reduced ice caps mean that the poles are less "white" and thus less reflective, and absorb more solar energy, increasing warming (particularly in the oceans).
- Melting permafrost generally releases trapped methane pockets; methane is a FAR stronger greenhouse gas in the short term than CO2, though it only lasts in the atmosphere for a decade or two after release
Etc. So it's a snowball effect, and the accelerating sea level rise reflects that, basically. It should continue to accelerate, so it won't be at 3.3mm/year in 2090, it'll be higher.

Second:

There's two measures to be aware of, when evaluating sea level rise; the basic sea level (which is what you're talking about) and the storm surge level. Storms are low-pressure areas, and between pushing the ocean ahead of them with winds and the low pressure tending to "suck" the ocean up, you can get significant temporary increases in sea level rise. The case study I'm using in my thesis work had a storm in 1999 that saw nearly 4 meters of storm surge;



If you see the pole on the right (apologies for the quality; took this with my camera while I was there), the line you can see on it is the high water mark during that storm. The water level you see there is a normal high tide level. That line's about shoulder-high if you're standing next to it. That isn't a possible extreme; that's where the water actually was in 1999, during that storm, due to storm surge. It caused a lot of flooding, obviously. And that's not the highest wave point, either; that's the resting water level, wave action is on top of that.

Coastal cities are already mostly built right on the limits they could have expected with storm surges in the past. Even 6 inches of additional sea level, especially combined with stronger storms, and you get significant flooding of the city when the storm hits at high tide, which is a matter of time.

If you've never done this kind of flood mapping, you'd be shocked by how quickly this scales up, in terms of impacts.

Shouldn't we factor in the fact the moon is drifting towards the earth and that effect? Too?

[Endus]

Why do we need to do something now (code for spend tons of money and increase taxes) for something that could happen in 200 years? Wouldn't 20 years out be better when we can actually tell how far the water will rise accurately?

Two things;

Stuff we build now, when we're talking about roads and highways and buildings, are likely to survive for a minimum of 50 years before major maintenance or such is required, if it'll be impacted in that period, you shouldn't even be considering building it there.

Second, that's 50 years as a minimum. Think of how many houses you know of that are 100+ years old, in downtowns. Do you think skyscrapers are all going to get torn down and never replaced? Etc.

Third, if you constantly build for the next 20 years, you have to rethink your plan every 20 years, and re-invest. You might spend less each time, but you'll spend far more in the long term. Ignoring inflation for the moment, in a big city, spending $200 million on an adaptation measure today that will keep the city safe for the projected changes over the next century is way smarter than spending $50 million for one that only protects against the next 20 years. Especially because if you're pushing for that minimum, there's far more chance that some exceptional event will exceed that capacity. And prevention is far cheaper than restoration. As an example, NYC is building some measures to protect against storm activity. The damages caused by Hurricane Sandy in NYC topped $19 billion. They're currently working on a few seawall projects to mitigate future events; those are costing in the half-billion-dollar range, far less. There's another proposal for a massive storm-surge barrier across the outer harbor entrance, which would cost potentially $25 billion, but even that massive cost would be justified if it prevented even two Sandy-level impacts in its lifespan.

Fourth, we're not talking about 200 years down the line. A lot of major coastal cities are already facing impacts. Scientists were saying in the '90s that the time to act was then. We're already late.

[cubby]

Shouldn't this thread be in the politics sub forum? Climate change is really more of a political "issue" than a scientific or any other issue.

Why would you want to politicize science? Or don't you think scientists should be listened to? Oh, or are you one of those science deniers . . . .

[Deleted]

Mwah, even though I live in a country below sea level I simply can't worry about any of these findings.

It happens anyway, it is as it is. Decreasing the crap we blast into the atmosphere daily won't change this.
We give ourselves too much "credit" in this global warming stuff. Also still waiting to see entire forests disappear due to acid rain from the 1980's.

[BuckSparkles]

Mwah, even though I live in a country below sea level I simply can't worry about any of these findings.

It happens anyway, it is as it is. Decreasing the crap we blast into the atmosphere daily won't change this.
We give ourselves too much "credit" in this global warming stuff. Also still waiting to see entire forests disappear due to acid rain from the 1980's.

^ It's beyond our control. Any change the earth has is tough luck for us.

Climate change is nothing more than a modern day religion for people afraid of death.

If paying more tax to support people who fly / travel / pollute far more than you makes you happy and feeling safe, fine and dandy.

[cubby]

^ It's beyond our control. Any change the earth has is tough luck for us.

Climate change is nothing more than a modern day religion for people afraid of death.

If paying more tax to support people who fly / travel / pollute far more than you makes you happy and feeling safe, fine and dandy.

Do you always disagree with scientists and instead opt for feels? Do you disagree with the temperature that water boils?

[BuckSparkles]

Do you always disagree with scientists and instead opt for feels? Do you disagree with the temperature that water boils?

Nope. Just on this issue I think it's outside of our control.

You won't convince me otherwise, so, stop trying.

[Deleted]

Do you always disagree with scientists and instead opt for feels? Do you disagree with the temperature that water boils?

Even scientists are politically motivated these days.

[cubby]

Nope. Just on this issue I think it's outside of our control.

You won't convince me otherwise, so, stop trying.

Gotcha - then you disagree with the temperature that water boils. Check. Just making sure we all understand your feels over reals position.

[BuckSparkles]

Gotcha - then you disagree with the temperature that water boils. Check. Just making sure we all understand your feels over reals position.

Kay. Was your two sets of post just to make yourself feel better?

Congrats I guess.

[cubby]

Kay. Was your two sets of post just to make yourself feel better?

Congrats I guess.

No, just want to make sure we're clear on your position. You're basically against scientific consensus. So, you literally disagree with scientists that water boils at a certain temperature.

The point here is that you make a ridiculous claim when your feels tell you to disagree about a scientific conclusion. The boiling water statement is to make that point crystal clear to you.

[BuckSparkles]

No, just want to make sure we're clear on your position. You're basically against scientific consensus. So, you literally disagree with scientists that water boils at a certain temperature.

The point here is that you make a ridiculous claim when your feels tell you to disagree about a scientific conclusion. The boiling water statement is to make that point crystal clear to you.

I never said anything about water boiling. That is you playing games.

Again, congrats on patting yourself on the back. Enjoy your modern religion.

[cubby]

I never said anything about water boiling. That is you playing games.

Again, congrats on patting yourself on the back. Enjoy your modern religion.

It's only games if you don't understand science, which apparently you don't - and now think is a religion. Not really patting myself on the back so much as congratulating myself on confirming a science denier. Do you "believe" in gravity?