New science suggests the ocean could rise more and faster than we thought

[Binkie The Clown]

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 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.

“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.

More at the link

[mackdaddy]

1. I think that totals much higher are feasable.

The total Sea Level Rise of the Greenland Ice sheet is something on the order of 40 feet. For the Antarctic Ice sheets it is about and additional 200 feet for a total of 240 feet if it were all to melt. It is assumed that it will take centuries to totally melt.

But we are also seeing what is fantastic changes in just my lifetime. The Arctic ocean has changed from being covered with near permanent ice tens of meters thick to ice only a few years and a few meters thick, and coming nearer to a totally ice free summer season. Huge chunks of the Antarctic Ice shelf are breaking off, accelerating the land ice sheets flow into the ocean.

And Greenland is seeing 10fold increases in the speed which ice flows are traveling into the sea. Large melt lakes are forming on the surface of the ice sheets, and flowing into and under the land ice sheets accelerating the melting.

So could we see 10% of the total land ice volume melt into the sea in 80 years? Seems reasonable to me, and that would represent at 24 foot rise.

If anything, we are seeing a constantly accelerating warming event. It is getting hotter, and getting hotter faster. And this causes feed backs causing everything to speed up warming even faster.

This is not going to end well for us. And the end for us may be "sooner than expected."