Why Climate Change Won't Matter in 20 Years

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by newhaul

OK the is actually directed at every post concerning sea level changes. I have posted this before and most if not all of the sea level changes I'm not posting the links again. Think techthonic shift and resultant upheaval. Remember the Indian ocean quake in 2004?
Well that one quake caused a rise of between 1 and 2 mm world wide. The Costa Rica quake later that year did approx 1 mm rise. Now think about all the quakes that happen all the time. And I'm not even mentioning the sub surface volcanic activity . ( look at t mid Atlantic ridge.)

Tectonics appear to be a factor in sea level changes.

June, 2014 -- The three Alaskan stations at Yakutat (9453220), Cordova (9454050), and Valdez (9454240) appear to show increasingly non-linear relative sea level changes. This could be due to changing vertical tectonic motion in the area or increasing melting of the glaciers in the vicinity and the resulting elastic rebound of the earth's crust. Previously, separate mean sea level trends were calculated for the data before and after an earthquake in February 1979. To obtain a better estimate of the more recent mean sea level trend, separate trends are now recalculated for the data before and after an earthquake in March 1988.

Sea Level Trends - NOAA Tides and Currents

Check out those three sites. They are anomalies that show sea level decrease.

Read the rest of the notes associated with the graph.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Remember the Indian ocean quake in 2004?
Well that one quake caused a rise of between 1 and 2 mm world wide.

re: the 2004 Indian Ocean quake - The raising of the sea floor significantly reduced the capacity of the Indian Ocean, producing a permanent rise in the global sea level by an estimated 0.1 millimetres (0.004 in).

2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

You are out by a factor of 10.

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Very good. Couldn't stay away from Google.

There are all sorts of bits and pieces to consider when calculating the effects of global warming. As Earth continues to warm sea ice and ice shelves will melt long before the bulk of ice caps melt. While I'll agree that 1-1/2" to 2" of sea level rise doesn't seem like much, it adds to all the other forces increasing sea level. And for those millions of people living extremely close to sea level, every inch increases the probability of disaster for them.

Luckily I'm an engineer and understand a bit about water and density. I did google about sea ice melting though. Go you...

Of course all sea ice includes the arctic ice. So add 2" to the 6" rise per century and in a few thousand years we might have a disaster. Again I'm not loosing sleep over it.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

Luckily I'm an engineer and understand a bit about water and density. I did google about sea ice melting though. Go you...

Of course all sea ice includes the arctic ice. So add 2" to the 6" rise per century and in a few thousand years we might have a disaster. Again I'm not loosing sleep over it.

Ice sheet melt is a serious problem.

If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet). If the Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, sea level would rise by about 60 meters (200 feet).

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Ice sheet melt is a serious problem.

If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet). If the Antarctic Ice Sheet melted, sea level would rise by about 60 meters (200 feet).

Now I'm beginning to understand....

As temps have warmed over the past 32 years, some ice melts (Arctic ice) but Greenland and Antarctic sheet ice doesn't. Hence the measly 1-3 inches of sea level increase over the same time period by the most enthusiastic estimates available.

Interesting....

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

Luckily I'm an engineer and understand a bit about water and density. I did google about sea ice melting though. Go you...

Of course all sea ice includes the arctic ice. So add 2" to the [] 6" rise per century [] and in a few thousand years we might have a disaster. Again I'm not loosing sleep over it.

Climate Model Predicts West Antarctic Ice Sheet Could Melt Rapidly | New York Times

For half a century, climate scientists have seen the West Antarctic ice sheet, a remnant of the last ice age, as a sword of Damocles hanging over human civilization.

The great ice sheet, larger than Mexico, is thought to be potentially vulnerable to disintegration from a relatively small amount of global warming, and capable of raising the sea level by 12 feet or more should it break up. But researchers long assumed the worst effects would take hundreds — if not thousands — of years to occur.

Now, new research suggests the disaster scenario could play out much sooner.

Continued high emissions of heat-trapping gases could launch a disintegration of the ice sheet within decades, according to a study published Wednesday, heaving enough water into the ocean to raise the sea level as much as three feet by the end of this century.

With ice melting in other regions, too, the total rise of the sea could reach five or six feet by 2100, the researchers found. That is roughly twice the increase reported as a plausible worst-case scenario by a United Nations panel just three years ago, and so high it would likely provoke a profound crisis within the lifetimes of children being born today.

The vast West Antarctic ice sheet sits on bedrock that dips thousands of feet below sea level. New computer simulations suggest that the warming atmosphere and ocean could attack the ice sheet from above and below, causing sea levels to rise much faster than previously thought.

The situation would grow far worse beyond 2100, the researchers found, with the rise of the sea exceeding a pace of a foot per decade by the middle of the 22nd century. Scientists had documented such rates of increase in the geologic past, when far larger ice sheets were collapsing, but most of them had long assumed it would be impossible to reach rates so extreme with the smaller ice sheets of today.[...]

Earth is warming 50x faster than when it comes out of an ice age | Skeptical Science

Recently, The Guardian reported on a significant new study published in Nature Climate Change, finding that even if we meet our carbon reduction targets and stay below the 2°C global warming threshold, sea level rise will eventually inundate many major coastal cities around the world.

20% of the world’s population will eventually have to migrate away from coasts swamped by rising oceans. Cities including New York, London, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Calcutta, Jakarta and Shanghai would all be submerged.

The authors looked at past climate change events and model simulations of the future. They found a clear, strong relationship between the total amount of carbon pollution humans emit, and how far global sea levels will rise. The issue is that ice sheets melt quite slowly, but because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for a long time, the eventual melting and associated sea level rise are effectively locked in.

As a result, the study authors found that due to the carbon pollution humans have emitted so far, we’ve committed the planet to an eventual sea level rise of 1.7 meters (5.5 feet). If we manage to stay within the 1 trillion ton carbon budget, which we hope will keep the planet below 2°C warming above pre-industrial levels, sea levels will nevertheless rise a total of about 9 meters (30 feet). If we continue on a fossil fuel-heavy path, we could trigger a staggering eventual 50 meters (165 feet) of sea level rise.

Predicting how quickly sea levels will rise is a challenge. However, two other studies just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the Antarctic ice sheet could melt more quickly than previously thought, and thus contribute to relatively rapid sea level rise. Over the past century, global sea level has risen faster than at any time in the past two millennia, and most of the recent sea level rise is due to human-caused global warming. Several feet of sea level rise this century is likely, with a possibility of 5 feet or more.


Sea level change during each of the twenty centuries of the Common Era.
Illustration: Climate Central, based on Kopp et al. (2016),
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Nature Climate Change study didn’t just look at sea level rise; it also looked at global temperature changes. Earth’s sharpest climate changes over the past half million years have occurred when the planet transitions from a ‘glacial’ to ‘interglacial’ period, and vice-versa.

Right now we’re in a warm interglacial period, having come out of the last ice age (when New York City and Chicago were under an ice sheet) about 12,000 years ago. During that transition, the Earth’s average surface temperature warmed about 4°C, but that temperature rise occurred over a period of about 10,000 years.

In contrast, humans have caused nearly 1°C warming over the past 150 years, and we could trigger anywhere from another 1 to 4°C warming over the next 85 years, depending on how much more carbon we pump into the atmosphere.


Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (top) and average global surface temperature (bottom)
from the past 20,000 years to the next 10,000 years in various emissions scenarios.
Illustration: Clark et al. (2016), Nature Climate Change.

What humans are in the process of doing to the climate makes the transition out of the last ice age look like a casual stroll through the park. We’re already warming the Earth about 20 times faster than during the ice age transition, and over the next century that rate could increase to 50 times faster or more. We’re in the process of destabilizing the global climate far more quickly than happens even in some of the most severe natural climate change events.

That rapid climate destabilization is what has climate scientists worried.

[SailOar]

Climate guru James Hansen warns of much worse than expected sea level rise | The Guardian

The current rate of global warming could raise sea levels by “several meters” over the coming century, rendering most of the world’s coastal cities uninhabitable and helping unleash devastating storms, according to a paper published by James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist who is considered the father of modern climate change awareness.

The research, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, references past climatic conditions, recent observations and future models to warn the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will contribute to a far worse sea level increase than previously thought.

Without a sharp reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the global sea level is likely to increase “several meters over a timescale of 50 to 150 years”, the paper states, warning that the Earth’s oceans were six to nine meters higher during the Eemian period – an interglacial phase about 120,000 years ago that was less than 1C warmer than it is today.

Global warming of 2C above pre-industrial times – the world is already halfway to this mark – would be “dangerous” and risk submerging cities, the paper said. A separate study, released in February, warned that New York, London, Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai will be among the cities at risk from flooding by 2100.[...]

“I’m always hesitant to ignore the findings and warnings of James Hansen; he has proven to be so very prescient when it comes to his early prediction about global warming. That having been said, I’m unconvinced that we could see melting rates over the next few decades anywhere near his exponential predictions, and everything else is contingent upon those melting rates being reasonable.”[...]

[newhaul]

Not to alarm anyone. I have noticed a common theme with all of the MMGW people ( and this is my biggest issue with the whole thing) every study written by the MMGW supporters side have the same three words in their papers. Could,may, and might. Those words are most usually followed by alarmist doom and gloom.
BTW the Antarctic ice sheet is not shrinking it is infact growing in most areas faster than it is melting in others. Which equals a net gain in ice volumes.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Not to alarm anyone. I have noticed a common theme with all of the MMGW people ( and this is my biggest issue with the whole thing) every study written by the MMGW supporters side have the same three words in their papers. Could,may, and might. Those words are most usually followed by alarmist doom and gloom.
BTW the Antarctic ice sheet is not shrinking it is infact growing in most areas faster than it is melting in others. Which equals a net gain in ice volumes.

Yes, it is growing - for now. Do not count on it continuing to do so.

But it might only take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally. “If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years -- I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.”

NASA Study: Mass Gains of Antarctic Ice Sheet Greater than Losses | NASA

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Now I'm beginning to understand....

As temps have warmed over the past 32 years, some ice melts (Arctic ice) but Greenland and Antarctic sheet ice doesn't. Hence the measly 1-3 inches of sea level increase over the same time period by the most enthusiastic estimates available.

Interesting....

The Greenland ice sheet is melting.

Greenland Ice Sheet Today | Surface Melt Data presented by NSIDC

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Not to alarm anyone. I have noticed a common theme with all of the MMGW people ( and this is my biggest issue with the whole thing) every study written by the MMGW supporters side have the same three words in their papers. Could,may, and might. Those words are most usually followed by alarmist doom and gloom.

Every such study also details what has happened and what is happening, according to observations, and usually builds a good case for what could, may, might happen. This surprises you?

Regardless of whether or not you think we are currently experiencing serious negative effects with the CO2 and other emissions to date, just about everyone agrees that these emissions have already had a measurable warming effect. Do you actually think we can simply let emissions continue increasing at the current rate, and there won't be repercussions?

BTW the Antarctic ice sheet sea ice is not shrinking it is in fact growing in most areas faster than it is melting in others showed above average seasonal maxima in 2013 and 2014. Which equals a net gain in ice volumes being sea ice, has almost nothing to do with sea level.

FTFY

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Every such study also details what has happened and what is happening, according to observations, and usually builds a good case for what could, may, might happen. This surprises you?

Regardless of whether or not you think we are currently experiencing serious negative effects with the CO2 and other emissions to date, just about everyone agrees that these emissions have already had a measurable warming effect. Do you actually think we can simply let emissions continue increasing at the current rate, and there won't be repercussions?

FTFY

Love the changes you made however your changes have nothing to do with what I posted. We both know if I had meant Antarctic sea ice I would have stated just that. I am referring to the Antarctic ice sheet.

[newhaul]

Remember people we are one good caldera away from snowball earth.
According to many we are well overdue on many of them around the globe

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Not to alarm anyone. I have noticed a common theme with all of the MMGW people ( and this is my biggest issue with the whole thing) every study written by the MMGW supporters side have the same three words in their papers. Could,may, and might. Those words are most usually followed by alarmist doom and gloom...

For a number of reasons:

1) "Could,may, and might" are the journalistic equivalent of 'error bars' or 'percent probability' used in technical scientific reports.

2) No one knows how this will play out politically. Will we continue burning fossils fuels like there is no tomorrow, or will we quickly convert to carbon-free renewable energy sources?

3) Drama sells newspapers

4) Human psychology is poorly equipped to understand or react appropriately to slow-moving threats. We do best when there are saber-toothed tigers at the cave mouth. So there is a need to stress the most immediate and the most awful, just to get people's attention.

How Psychology Can Save The World From Climate Change | NPR

[...] A new paper published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science helps explain why. The paper's authors — Sander van der Linden, Edward Maibach, and Anthony Leiserowitz — review psychological research to identify key aspects of climate change and climate change communication that contribute to the mismatch between the urgency and severity of climate change, on the one hand, and widespread public disengagement, on the other. They highlight five features of human psychology that make climate change communication especially challenging, and they pair these with recommendations for how to make science communication and policy more effective.

In brief, here are their five insights and recommendations:

• First, people are generally more responsive to personal experience than to abstract analysis. This can be a problem because climate change is typically described in very abstract, statistical terms — we see the numbers and figures, but we rarely recognize the effects of climate change it in our own, everyday experience. The authors suggest that "information about climate change risks needs to be translated into relatable and concrete personal experiences." Fortunately, this might not be that hard: Climate change is already occurring in ways that do affect our own, everyday experience.
• Second, when faced with the enormity of climate change, it's easy to lose any sense of personal efficacy. But rather than despair, we can capitalize on the fact that we're social beings who respond to social norms. Motivating individuals to act can be a challenge, but establishing and rewarding community norms can help encourage pro-environmental behavior even when individual behavior seems like a drop in the bucket.
• Third, we tend to treat the immediate and personal quite differently from the distant and uncertain. When climate change is presented as distant in space and time, it's easier to ignore. In making decisions, for example, immediate costs (like the inconvenience of reducing one's carbon footprint) tend to loom large, while uncertain future costs (like the catastrophic consequences of warming) are underweighted. Climate change communication might be more effective by focusing more on regional impacts of warming that are close in space and time — like the effects we can see now in our own communities.
• Fourth, research has shown that people's attitude to risk can depend on whether they're thinking about potential losses or potential gains. In particular, people are more willing to tolerate risk when dealing with losses, so some probability of a loss in quality of life downstream is a gamble they're relatively willing to take. "These psychological insights," the authors write, "suggest that shifting the policy conversation from the potentially negative future consequences of not acting (losses) on climate change to the positive benefits (gains) of immediate action is likely to increase public support."
• Finally, research suggests that motivating behavior with extrinsic rewards — such as monetary incentives for conserving energy — could be more effective when paired with appeals to people's intrinsic motivation to improve others' wellbeing and to care for the environment. Specifically: "Appealing to people's intrinsic motivational needs can be a more effective and long-lasting driver of pro-environmental behavior." When intrinsically motivated, pro-environmental behavior is more likely to be maintained after extrinsic incentives are removed, and extrinsic rewards can actually undermine people's intrinsic motivation to change.[...]

See also:

The Psychology of Climate Change: The Science and Scholarship of How Humans Think and Feel about Global Warming

The Battle Over Global Warming Is All in Your Head

The Psychology of Climate Change Communication

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by newhaul

Remember people we are one good caldera away from snowball earth.
According to many we are well overdue on many of them around the globe

I will bet that does not occur.

Or will you pull a Marc Morano?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXqozz54-iU