Oceans may rise over 4 1/2 feet by 2100 due to global warming threaten coasts

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HBO6 @ Dec 14 2006, 09:14 PM) [snapback]362514[/snapback]</div>

Yes, and they MAY rise 1/2 inch, and they MAY stay the same, and it MAY be in the year 2200....this is pure scare tactics.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Dec 14 2006, 05:42 PM) [snapback]362542[/snapback]</div>

Scare tactics for what? To be more concious of our energy usage and the forms we generate it in? Do you research climatology at all?

 

Global Warming is a natual Event.Mankind has messed things up but i believe we are not causing the warming.Our monitoring and interfering of the earth is like a grain of sand on a beach.Scientists have found proof of past history climate changes and we were not around at that time.Clobal warming makes a great story in the media and is highly political.With this said! It does not mean we can keep messing things up.Since we only live here!(at least in the near future)!I like a clean house.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(stanlwyjohn @ Dec 15 2006, 07:47 AM) [snapback]362684[/snapback]</div>

When will they stop beating the drums. Tell me, how many huricanes will hit the soutern US next year - something they have not been able to predict with accuracy - and now they are predicting ocean depths 100 years from now. Obviously, there is an inappropriate allocation of human resources here.

 

I am a amateur meterologist!have been since i was a kid.These days its a computer world!all weather data is collected by various ways and it the computer models that determine what will happen.I try to forcast with alittle of the old and the new ways.Computers are cool!but looks like if ww3 ever happen,our dependents on computers and other high tech would send us back into the dark ages.Here in Ct we have all types of weather! a weathermans dream.THe National Weather Service (NWS) cant even get less than 12 hrs prediction correct,so on the longer range i wont bank on the results coming true.They are constantly changing the forcasts so you rarely see a true long range forcast stay intact.Im not trying to knock the NWS! they do good work but they are not going to get it right as much as you would like to see.

 

I don't have the time for a full reply but I just have to say:

They have accurately predicted plenty of the major storm systems.

If you think dumping metric tons of CO2 (a known GHG) will not have an effect I gues there is nothing I can tell you. Thats just head in the sand mentality.

Climatology and meteorology are too very different things. Climates are trends which are much easier to predict than day to day weather.

If you would like to learn more about the subject I reccomend RealClimate.org. (or any other non-front group site) That should clear up a lot of the misconceptions.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(stanlwyjohn @ Dec 15 2006, 06:47 AM) [snapback]362684[/snapback]</div>

Well this is deep. Climate has changed in the past before humans were a factor. Wow! News to me and all the scientists who've ever been in the industry the last 200 years!! We had no idea ice ages occurred, or it was warmer when the dinosaurs were around!

Come on, maybe you've dabbled in meteorology, but apparently that doesn't qualify you as an expert in climate research. First you'd know the difference between climate and weather. (And when I lived in CT, the forecasts were right about 87% of the time for 24 hours advance - the local weather station gave out an umbrella when they weren't right, so they kept track - which is admittedly worse than someplace like east Texas which has really boring weather 80% of the time, but still better than you're implying).

Next, you'd realize that mankind is directly responsible for a 50% increase in the level of CO2 since 1900. This is undisputed - CO2 levels had been fairly stable, and we can compute how much oil and coal have been consumed and it pretty closely matches the increase we've seen in atmospheric levels, allowing for absorption/release by oceans, etc. Also, we've affected the stronger global-warming gases methane, CFC, and others, but they are in smaller quantities. This has affected our global atmospheric balance of gases, to the point where these levels haven't been seen for well over 400,000 years! Some briefly believed increased tree growth would capture and sequester this extra CO2, but something like 30% of our rainforests have been cut down, and more than that of the world's temperate forests. Not a grain of sand on the beach anymore, is it?

Actually, the low end is 5", not .5", and that's the bottom of the probability bell curve. At least a foot would be a pretty safe bet. When you consider what this would do to a storm surge, it becomes a serious issue.

Weather is like day-trading and climate is like investing your IRA. It takes special skills to be a day-trader and many people have failed at it despite constant analysis of their picks. But simply put your IRA in diversified stocks and bonds and you can be pretty certain that twenty years from now it will at least double. In this case, diversification is the numerous independent estimates using different scientific techniques that converge on a common answer.

Simultaneous with the rise in known global-warming gases, the Earth has warmed up. Can we write off our children's generation on the chance that that was coincidence? As part of that, we should look at the consequences of reducing our CO2 generation: less oil imported, meaning a lower trade imbalance dragging down our economy, less money going towards terrorist-friendly countries; better efficiency (productivity) which is historically related to a better profit margin; investment in new technologies in global demand; and cleaner air which would reduce our asthma rate and various other respiratory-cardiac issues. On top of that, we wouldn't shirk our responsibility towards our own children.

So yes, we can say it's all natural and we shouldn't do anything. But there's a very good chance we're causing it this time. And big climate changes in the past have been related to mass extinctions - up to 90% extinction rates! Is this something we want to bring on ourselves - largely by our own laziness - if we have a reasonable chance of affecting it? Maybe you want to let ourselves go extinct, but I don't.

 

Thanks for the info (F8L) i will look into it.I wouldnt hide my head in the sand.I try to keep informed but if i got serious about all the gloom and doom the media puts out! we might as well end it all now.I love this planet and it hurts to see what we are doing to it.If we dont do anything about world population!Then it will be a real sad day in the not to distant future.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(HBO6 @ Dec 14 2006, 07:14 PM) [snapback]362514[/snapback]</div>

As a person who is fairly conservative about offering an opinion without first making some small effort to gather facts and analysis, I'm kind of put off by the stream of comments to this innocuous story.

Not only is this estimate not new, it's well within the bounds of the range of projections for sea level rise that have already been gathered. Take 30 second to Google this and check the Wikipedia. No guarantees of accuracy doing that, but the Wikipedia article on sea level risk does give the projected range of estimates for sea level rise in 2100.

Yeah, there's uncertainty. Yeah, there's a lot of uncertainty. As Yogi Berra said, the future ain't what it used to be. But there's not infinite uncertainty. Nor is it useful to presume that there is.

The weight of evidence suggests that there will be a fairly signfiicant rise in sea level. Thats not guaranteed, but what aspect of the future is guaranteed. And if you want to say that we know nothing about what's likely to happen, you might at least, I don't know, look up a few facts first, because as far as I can tell, that assertion is incorrect. We have imperfect information and limited ability to predict. But that's going to be the case no matter what. Lots of important decisions are made on the basis of imperfect information, including all long-term physical investments (roads, factories, houses, you name it). Marriage is a good example. It's a question of the relative costs and benefits of using or ignoring that information. A blanket dismissal is akin to saying I can never get married because I can't predict how I'll feel about it 30 years from now. You can do that, but it's probably not the optimal way to run your life.

Then, this fatalistic attidue that what will be will be, we have nothing to do with it, mankind doesn't affect anything really -- this may be comforting, because it requires you to do nothing, but that's clearly at odds with even a cursory examination of the facts.

I mean, for goodness sake, go look ON THIS BOARD at the current discussion of the ozone layer. CFCs were compounds not found in nature, but so widely used by man that they came close to destroying a critical part of what makes this planet habitable. Again, to emphasize the key points there, CFCs (or more generally halocarbons) were a strictly human product -- nobody ever argued that there were any significant natural sources of CFCs. We manufactured CFCs specifically because they were totally non-reactive (Teflon is a CFC, for example), and as a result, they didn't react until blown apart by hard ultraviolet in the upper atmosphere, and the result was that we nearly destroyed a part of the atmosphere that was critical to our survival. So, to say that Man cannot affect the atmosphere is clearly contrary to fact. Been there, done that. Nobody argues to the contrary (any more) in the context of CFCs and ozone. Given how many people there are in the world now, it doesn't seem implausible at all to me that we'd be having other impacts as well.

Obviously man has changed the face of the planet. Seen any herds of buffalo roaming lately?

You can't trust any single statistic, but one that sticks in my mind is that roughly 60 percent of the photosynthesis that occurs in North America occurs for Man's benefit. Plants for our use account for 60% of the photosynthesis here. Knowing nothing of the details of the calculation, that sounds about right to me, and provides a fair measure of the potential impact that Man might be having. In any event, it shows that we are far from insignifcant. To the contrary, we have become a force of nature.

Nor is this new. Historical examples abound where mans' presence affected large areas. Improper irrigation leading to salt intrusion and loss of large tracts of arable land is a story that has been played out numerous times in recorded human history, and is being played out now in parts of Australia. (Again, a minute of Googling will show you).

The US lost its frontier in 1890. That's the Census at which time the Federal govenment officially declared that we had no more frontier areas in what would become the lower 48 states. As of 1890, we had officially filled the country from sea to sea. Unfortunately, we still have a frontier mentality, and it's not helping us get ahead in the 21st century. As the population grows and we pack more and more people into the same space, it only stands to reason that we're going to have to be cleaner and cleaner, or we're going to foul our own nest. Levels of emissions that were acceptable in 1880, when we still literally had a frontier, wouldn't be acceptable to day. And nobody raises a fuss about that. I mean, you guys want an open sewer running through your town, or outhouses behind every tract mansion? If you see where I'm going, then it should not seem at all odd that the level of emissions that were relatively harmless in a world with 1 billion people just aren't going to cut it in a world with 6 billion and growing. It's not a question of whether such things are going to occur. It's a question of adapting to them efficiently, and with minimal loss of liberty, property, and prosperity.

 

Nerfer!Im far from being an expert!I just say what i feel.I may see greater flaws in weatherforcasting than the average person because i follow it so closely.Take a weekly forecast and see if changes before the end of the week,i bet it happens more than less.I agree that forcasting weather patterns may be easier than a very short range forcast.The computer models AVN,ETA,NGM etc are constantly changing their predictions,I know! I check them out often.I stay away from the tv and radio forecasters,they seem more interested in rateings.You made alot of valid points,ill look into it more closely.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(stanlwyjohn @ Dec 15 2006, 12:23 PM) [snapback]362898[/snapback]</div>

NP man. If you get real interested I can help direct you to paticular posts or search words on the site that might help you find information more quickly. I generally read the "topic" then read the 100 or so responses to the topic to see how many other scientists agree and on what premise. What I find helpful, is that often times you will see climate/oceanography scientists posting comments on articles. When i watched the "Global Dimming" movie I went to RealClimate.org to verify some of the info and sure enough Beate Liepert ws on there clarifying her part in the movie.

My comment was mostly directed towards those who still just imediately dismiss anything to do with global warming as some hyped up propaganda and rely on the "lack of accountability" mentality a lot of Americans tend to have.

Being up on meterology I'm sure you'll enjoy the site. physical geography is such a wonderful subject when one considers how our lives are dictated by climate and landscape/aquascape. I'm always up for learning more (despite taking a full load in college) so if you have any links you would like to share post em up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Schmika @ Dec 14 2006, 08:42 PM) [snapback]362542[/snapback]</div>

It's like saying, you're not sure if smoking causes cancer or not...so until you're ABSOLUTELY SURE (by giving yourself lung cancer) you're going to keep smoking.

...and, even if you do contract lung cancer, it could have been from another source...so you STILL DON'T KNOW, do you?

I think it's more prudent to err on the side of caution than plan for a blue sky and end up with a rainy day.

 

how none of that "exciting" connecticut weather never makes the news like some of them "boring" east texas hurricanes?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Dec 21 2006, 11:53 AM) [snapback]365269[/snapback]</div>

I agree and personally am not suggesting we shouldn't be prudent - however, a question I have is can we take a look at the range of scientifically plausible sea level increases projected to occur due to anthropogenic causes and then determine to what extent these can be mitigated, by what policies, at what cost, and to what level of benefit.

The wild claims such the one in this posting (4 1/2 feet by 2100) are simply not within the realm of scientifically plausible outcomes based on any realistic projections I have ever seen from IPCC. So when you talk solutions, the steps you would take to address a 4 1/2 foot rise vs. a more likely 6 inch rise are very different in scope and scale.

Concerning ourselves with solutions for a 6 inch rise would be prudent. Trying to solve for a 4 1/2 foot rise would go far beyond prudent, into the realm of irresponsibly foolish.