Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/05/21/global-sea-levels-could-rise-6.html
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6 feet?
I thought only ignorati used freedom units.
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But, but… brain cancer.
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This feels like the kind of optimistic prediction that so far have turned out to be horrible, horrible underestimations.
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That was my exact thought. Every single model put forth so far has dreadfully underestimated what a shit show we have made of our one and only world.
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Are we replacing “climate change” with “climate crisis” yet?
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we are going to need taller trees.
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The Orangistas will just put some neosporin and a bandaid on it and it’ll be all right. If we could only cut taxes more , that would do it as well.
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I have read in multiple locations:
If all the ice of Greenland melts, the sea will rise about 4 meters in the northern atlantic and more in the rest of the world (the loss of the ice mass on Greenland would cause the earth’s crust to come up in the northern atlantic).
I’ve also read:
The Greenland ice cap is melting way quicker than estimated.
and:
Contrary to what models predicted, the antarctic ice cap is melting already (the models predicted an initial growth, followed by eventual melting if the global warming would continue).
my conclusion is that we are somewhat screwed in the best case. (A large percentage of the worlds population lives on the coast).
It’s better not to think about the worst case scenario (‘the clathrate gun’, permafrost methane melting , followed by runaway global warming ending in a mars-like situation).
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What’s the “UN end of the world” you’re referencing here?
You know, black helicopters, reptilian shapeshifters, FEMA death camps, all that stuff
Can’t trust those ((( globalists )))
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June 29, 1989
So 2000 was the start of the end of the world by that prediction.
How’s Vanuatu doing these days?
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The U.N. article doesn’t say the sea level rise will have occurred by 2000. That’s the deadline for implementing enough changes to prevent a temperate change greater than 3 degrees. Given what we know now, 30 years later, it seems like the predictions were spot on.
Brown said if the warming trend continues, ″the question is will we be able to reverse the process in time? We say that within the next 10 years, given the present loads that the atmosphere has to bear, we have an opportunity to start the stabilizing process.″
He said even the most conservative scientists ″already tell us there’s nothing we can do now to stop a … change″ of about 3 degrees.
″Anything beyond that, and we have to start thinking about the significant rise of the sea levels … we can expect more ferocious storms, hurricanes, wind shear, dust erosion.″
He said there is time to act, but there is no time to waste.
ETA:
To imply that because the world didn’t end in 2000 the UN prediction was wrong is to deliberately misread the article. Rather, the article’s conclusions hew so close to what has happened and continues to happen that I might say we’re well and truly fucked.
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Also:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01313-4
It’s not a random co-incidence that these two authors are just emerging into the public discourse:
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It’s worth reading the post and, at least, the abstract to parse what “could” in the headline means. This study uses “Structure Expert Judgement,” which is another way to say “crowdsourced opinions,” in this case of people eminently qualified to have an opinion. The study says the “uncertainty” has grown. It doesn’t say the median forecast has gotten much worse but the that margin of error has gotten wider. It concludes that because of the uncertainty planners should build in a higher rise possibility when making preparations.
Isostatic rebound takes a long time, though. So sea level would rise, then fall locally as the crust rose relative to sea level due to the reduced weight. This would take thousands of years - there are areas in Canada and Northern Europe where the isostatic rebound from the last ice age is still taking place (11,000 years after the last ice melted)
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The highest natural point in the Florida Keys is at the Hemingway House - 11’ above sea level.
Might want to visit those before they become a reef.
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