UA(Arizona)-led research sounds alarm on danger of rising sea levels

[JonLP24]

Source: AZCentral.com


A 1-meter increase in sea level doesn't sound like much.

But the 3.3-foot rise would be enough to flood 90 percent of New Orleans, 33 percent of Virginia Beach, Va., and 18 percent of Miami, according to scientists.

With the release of a University of Arizona-led study earlier this week, evidence continues to mount that the polar ice sheets are melting at a rate that could profoundly affect coastal regions unless greenhouse gases are reduced worldwide, scientists say.

"Sometime before the end of this century, we will cross that critical threshold where the Earth will be committed to 4, possibly more, meters (13.2 feet) of sea-level rise that could occur at a rate as high as a meter per century," said Jonathan Overpeck, a UA professor and atmospheric scientist.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/07/09/20110709university-of-arizona-research-global-warming.html

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Atypical Liberal]

2. It won't matter to the deniers.

It won't matter to the deniers.

It could rain fire from the sky and even then they'd just say it was a natural phenomenon and an aberration.

I've all but given up worrying about the environment. Nothing will change until people have no water to drink or are gasping for air.

Correction: Nothing will change until senator's children have no water to drink or are gasping for air.

[glinda]

3. They will just job it out in contracts to Army Corpse of Engineers.

[Fuddnik]

4. I never liked Virginia Beach anyway.

:sarcasm:

Unfortunately, I'm within walking distance of the Gulf in Florida.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. Every 5 years or so...

my father and step mother rent a place at Atlantic Beach, NC (on one of the outer bank islands). The entire place would be under water with a 3 meter sea raise.

[XemaSab]

5. We've already crossed that threshold

That genie's not going back in the bottle.

[BREMPRO]

6. since we are willfully ignorant and our politics too short sighted to do anything about this

we better get better at building levee's.. cuz we are going to need a lot of them...

[felix_numinous]

7. DC is built on a swamp too--

Here is a map that shows sea level rise results:

http://flood.firetree.net/

[kestrel91316]

8. By the end of this decade we will wish fondly for forecasts of only one meter per century.

It's the exponential curve, stupid!

[BOHICA12]

9. So the battle will be about mitigation ... not prevention

because prevention and reversal are beyond us (currently).

[Overseas]

11. Has been. Since the 80's when we knew it could be coming

We held out too long for a dead cert.

James Burke's After The Warming was released in 1988, I believe.

And way back when I was in college it was all about the 40 mpg. You were hipper with higher mpg.

And although recycling could be a chore, we romanced the process as best we could, shared beautiful visions of sustainable technologies, locally controlled power sources, and maybe even playing music together in the village square. If need be, to set our planet on more sustainable consumption patterns.

And when that Bush Crash came I thought we were there.

[greiner3]

10. Coming soon;

A proposal to rovoke all state funds for the university. Besides, it's located in Tucson.

[thelordofhell]

12. I'll miss New Orleans

Virgina Beach and Miami........not so much

[blkmusclmachine]

13. You got to wonder: Once the waters start drowning coastlines,

what the Deniers will say. Let me guess: "Who could have known?"

[JonLP24]

14. According to "Need to Know"

The process has already started in Norfolk, Virginia. They get regular flooding, the town has put in money to raise certain streets & some homes. Some residents have technology to watch the tides so they can expect and prepare for floods.

People who deny that climate change has an impact on rising sea levels need to look no further than Norfolk, VA.

[quakerboy]

15. A hundred years per meter

That's probably enough time for people to get out of the way. The way our understanding of biology and our ability to manipulate it has grown in the last hundred years, that's probably enough time to get gills implanted.

Not to say we don't have a problem. But if you pull up the "flood map" another person kindly posted, the 1 meter mark does not appear to be much of a problem in any major US city except New Orleans, which is already kinda under the water level.

But maybe if we watch a major US City wiped irrevocably off the map (not just flooded and damaged, but wiped away like Pompeii) people might start to pay attention and realize how serious this actually is.

[boppers]

16. Isn't there a huge chunk of New Orleans already below sea level?

We haven't realized this yet?

[awoke_in_2003]

17. and probably a good chunk...

of NYC (our financial capital) underwater, too.