Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago In Antarctic Drastically Raised Sea Levels 437
An anonymous reader writes "As temperatures rise, scientists continue to worry about the effects of melting Antarctic ice, which threatens to raise sea levels and swamp coastal communities. This event, though, isn't unprecedented. Researchers have uncovered evidence that reveals global warming five million years ago may have caused parts of Antarctica's ice sheets to melt, causing sea levels to rise by about 20 meters."
More to the point... (Score:4, Informative)
It is well known that sea levels have been going up and down throughout the ages. The question now is whether or not we are acelerating these variations and whether life can adapt to them fast enough.
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it's not the rate of change, it's the rate of change of the rate of change that's scary.
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Funny)
I find your humor quite derivative.
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Funny)
That comment is certainly integral to this discussion.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Funny)
So what is so fucking wrong with the rate of change. I for one will be glad when I can finally grow oranges in Antarctica. Seriously world is a harsh inhospitable place. This planet has been giving us earth quakes, and hurricanes for a long time. I am glad humanity is finally striking back. Fuck the planet earth.
I want to see the bitch in pain. Lets burn the land and boil the sea. Every last inch of the planet should be raped and plundered. Why is it when some alleged middle eastern terrorist kill a few new yorkers, the USA wants to go to war with the middle east and kill every single arab. Yet when mother earth sends Katrina our way we do nothing. I say it is about time we started holding the planet accountable for all the suffering it has given us.
Re: (Score:3)
Lets burn the land and boil the sea.
Go ahead, but you still won't take the sky from me.
Re: (Score:3)
Not really? Temperature change fits pretty well to a quadratic right now, I thought.
Re: (Score:2)
That and the pollution. In the past it didn't involve creating vast amounts of particulate matter or mountains of plastic.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, sure. All those volcanic eruptions and tons of dinosaur emitted methane had nothing to do with it.
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Informative)
Errr... the dino's farted out about 65 million years ago. My guess is their farts would have dissipated by 5 millions years ago seeing as methane has about a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere.
Don't let science blind you, just continue to use whatever you are using.
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmm, almost every climatologist out there says AGW is real, but an AC on /. who thinks that plastic pollution is a-okay because the source material was in the ground says it's a complete joke. Further, he then makes some claim about "libtards", as if science that he doesn't like can be neatly categorized as being "leftist".
Who will I pick?
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I'll pick the overwhelming majority of climatologists state. Just like how I accept what the majority of biologists say about evolution.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Bigger better faster. Sadly the bigger better faster turned out to be alligators instead of Tyrannosaurs, so when I go to Outback Steakhouse I only get a dinky serving of gator bites instead of a whopping Tyrannosteak!
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
A couple of important points: Firstly, 5 million years ago, there weren't 7 billion people living on Earth, people whose food supply was dependent on an agricultural system tightly adapted to today's particular climatic conditons. I will always remember a lecture given by one of my geology professors. He drew a graph on the board, initially without a scale. On the left, the graph fluctuated wildly up and down, going from extreme highs to extreme lows. Then suddenly, the graph settled down to mild up and down variations, and became basically horizontal, continuing to the right. Then he labelled the axes. The vertical axis was local temperature for an area where most humans lived. The horizontal axis was time. The time when the temperature settled down to a relatively constant pattern was about 10 000 years ago, the time when the last ice age ended. Then he asked us what other important event occurred around 8000 to 10000 years ago. Of course, the answer was the dawn of human civilization. Human civilization appeared about 8000 years ago. Civilization can only exist because of agriculture. People begin to plant crops in one area. They grow more food than they can eat, so they can have more children. Not all members of society have to spend time farming; individuals can afford to spend time doing other things like making pottery to store extra food, building better houses, or posting on Slashdot.
The problem for cities comes when the conditions that allowed successful agriculture change. Three or four years of failed crops caused by drought or heat or cold or surplus precipitation will exhaust all stored food. The residents of the cities will have to abandon their cities to begin hunting and gathering again, thus largely shattering any nascent civilization. The lesson from this is that human civilization was not simply the result of the triumph of human intelligence over nature. Civilization appeared 8000 years ago because the climate conditions favored it. During the last ice age, the conditions did not favor the development of cities. Even in areas that were not covered in ice, the climate conditions would have been highly variable thanks to the huge persistent ice sheets to the north. One day the air would come from the warm south, another day, the air would come from the cold northern ice sheets. These unstable conditions would have made sustained agriculture impossible.
My second point is that the well known fact that the climate in the past has shifted from warm to cold to warm should not be comforting to us. In fact, it should be the opposite. The fact that the Earth's climate has shifted in the past indicates that our climate is highly sensitive to relatively small forcings. Tiny changes in the Earth's orbit that cause periodically the Northern hemisphere to get more sunlight, and then tens of thousands of years later less sunlight are thought to have forced the Earth into and then out of ice ages (Milankovic Cycles). The slow collision of the Indian sub-continent with Asia, and its resulting volcanism is thought to have caused a large spike in carbon dioxide concentrations, resulting in a climate where the conditions in the north were near tropical.
The fact that the climate has shifted in the past due to relatively small changes indicates that "relatively small" changes wrought by humans, such as the removal of carbon from under the ground and the dumping of it into the atmosphere are capable of pushing our climate into a very different state, one that is likely to reduce human agricultural output by enough to make our current large scale civilization a dubious proposition.
Re: (Score:3)
Please explain why you are sure that the cessation of the ice age, with an accompanying moderation in temperature, is not what permitted human agriculture -- and not the reverse. Please describe an experiment to falsify your premise.
The experiments have already been run many times by nature.
Take a look. [nasa.gov] The release of carbon dioxide brings the end of great ice ages happens at intervals of about 75,000 during the last 800,000 (it has happened 11 times). The development of agriculture clearly post-dates this most recent natural CO2 and temperature surge.
Now agriculture has almost certainly helped maintaining this inter-glacial period by gradually clearing land that stored carbon as forest.
In fact we had a recent episode when pandemic d
Re: (Score:3)
Unfortunately your link has nothing to do with glacial periods or ice ages. It only shows an graph of the temperature at antarctica.
Also: is it a mean temperature? What is the graph supposed to mean? As it is slightly above zero degrees most of the time, the graphbmakes no sense at all anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
We are sure of it because of the options presented it is the only one that makes sense. If the development of agriculture could moderate temperature, then the high levels of agriculture we see today would be moderating temperature.
Also, archaeologists have found tools and whatnot indicating that humans were cultivating crops long before it became widespread. The theory that a fluctuation climate prevented them from flourishing fits with the fact that they did not flourish until the climate stabilized.
Not ev
Re: (Score:3)
I think the big assumption is that warming is likely to reduce agricultural output.
Actually, the warming is already causing a small reduction in agricultural output. Technology, however, is increasing agricultural output at a faster rate than the reductions are slowing it, so we're net positive for now.
More heat allows for longer growing seasons and longer growing seasons allow us to boost production per acre.
It can potentially do that, if your crops are adpated to a longer growing season. However, more heat also increases the incidence rate of floods and droughts, neither of which are good for crops. It can also trigger changes to local climates which may render some previously fertile areas
Re: (Score:3)
Scientists have never said it didn't happen in the past.
Not only that, but they have for a very long time said that it did happen
But there is a time table for the deniers:
Stage 1: Global warming is hogwash and liberal claptrap
Stage 2: Look! There is one data point that doesn't correspond. Proof that Global warming is not real
Stage 3: Well, there is such a thing as global warming, but humans don't cause it!
Stage 4: Well, maybe humans had something to do with it. Butn not enough to mean anything
Terminal Stage: Humans have caused Global warming, but we
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Funny)
Fine, let's call them "people who deny AGW based upon misinformation, ignorance and lies".
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Heaven forfend" (forfend? wtf?) we stop using tricks and misleading data to try and justify our stance: http://www.skepticalscience.com/cherrypicking-deny-continued-ocean-global-warming.html [skepticalscience.com]
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
More than life, civilization, most of mankind and big cities are near sea level, and at coasts. And the crops that feeds most of them are not so far.
How wrong can you be grasshopper. Crops are grown along rivers, generally in flood plains. Now the rivers may rise, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for farmers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Jesus. Get a grip. (Score:5, Informative)
I daresay we can adapt fast enough to that.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly right. My plan to adapt to the changes during the next 100 years is to be dead for at least 50 of them.
That's a big part of my plan, also. In addition, I'll simply continue living where I always have, over 1,000 miles in any direction from needing to worry about what the sea level is. (With the added benefit of being far, far away from any large metropolitan cesspools. e.g. NYC, LA....)
You know those tankers that bring in crude oil? (Score:2)
I am betting the berths for those tankers were not designed for water thats 20m higher than it is now. People shrug their shoulders and say, who cares if Marthas Vineyard drowns? But we do not have the infrastructure in place to keep anything working if the sea levels rise.
Re: (Score:3)
Cesspools? Okay, I'll remember to wave as I fly over your boring little burg.
Boring? You're kidding, right?
Wide areas of open land. Countless opportunities for recreation. Fresh, clean air to breath. Peaceful sleep under dark skies, uninterrupted by sirens. And all while still having the conveniences of a city available in less driving time than a typical commute in the coastal shitholes.
Enjoy your endless ocean of concrete. There's no way I could.
I'll stay right where I am and have a life worth living.
Re:More to the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
whether life can adapt to them fast enough.
Depends on the life which is trying to adapt. Sealife, in the instance of rising sea levels, probably has a better chance at adapting than air sucking land dwellers.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I do know that when ice melts, it takes up less volume than liquid water. I also understand that Antarctica is large, but the oceans around the world are pretty big, too. You're trying to scare me into believing that a couple portions of Antarctica can produce enough water to raise the oceans around the world by 60 feet. Someone please tell me how much ice would have to be melted in order to do that and if Antarctica (even if completely melted) could do that. Seems a lit
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see....
According to Google, Antarctica is ~14 million square km, and has an average of about 1.6 km of ice on top of it.
So, call it 22.4 million cubic km of ice. With a density of about 0.92 g/cm^3. So ~20.6 million cubic km of water tied up in that ice sheet.
Surface area of the planet is ~510 milllion square km.
Which gives us ~40 meters of sea level rise as a MINIMUM if the entire ice sheet melts.
Of course, it's not all expected to melt, but hey....
Thanks for doing the math (Score:2)
That was nicely done.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This article appears to reference a decent study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21692423 [bbc.co.uk] According to it, the average depth of ice in the Antarctic is around 2126m, (~6975ft, or ~1.3 miles!) At that depth, it would take the ice contained under a 1 square yard area to cover a football field with over a foot of ice. (6875*3*3 = 62275 cubic ft, 360*160*1=57600 cubic feet)
Oh yeah: that 2.1km average: it's apparently over a 12.295 million square kilometer area. 26.54 millio
Re: (Score:3)
Think in 3D, not 2D. This article appears to reference a decent study http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21692423 [bbc.co.uk] According to it, the average depth of ice in the Antarctic is around 2126m, (~6975ft, or ~1.3 miles!) At that depth, it would take the ice contained under a 1 square yard area to cover a football field with over a foot of ice. (6875*3*3 = 62275 cubic ft, 360*160*1=57600 cubic feet)
Oh yeah: that 2.1km average: it's apparently over a 12.295 million square kilometer area. 26.54 million cubic _kilometers_ of ice. while we're at it: surface area of the planet: 510,072,000 sq km (wikipedia).
So. simple math from there: 26,540,000/510,072,000 = 0.052km... or about 52m (170ft) for the planet if all ice in Antarctica melts. The article actually says potential equivalent of 58m, so an exercise to the reader to determine where the extra 6m comes from.. and how many cities that would affect.
BTW: Highly recommend seeing the movie Chasing Ice http://www.chasingice.com/ [chasingice.com] for a view of how fast the glaciers are changing. Netflix carries it.
Your not thinking fourth dimensionally!
Re: (Score:3)
No it is not impossible [wikipedia.org]. The raft is made of basalt mostly and is somewhat less dense than the upper mantle, and is up to 35 KM thick. Although the bottom of the raft is quite hot - to the point of considerable plasticity - it conducts the heat from the Earth's deeper mantle through it well enough that it mostly maintains its integrity - and even where it is liquid it does not sink because it is of less density than the mantle it floats on and the heat is nowhere near enough to dissolve it in solution.
Re:More to the point... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is well known that sea levels have been going up and down throughout the ages. The question now is whether or not we are acelerating these variations and whether life can adapt to them fast enough.
Life isn't threatened by anthropogenic global warming. Even the human specie, as a whole, isn't threatened. There is also a scientific consensus on the fact that global warming is happening and that we are responsible for it.
The real question is whether the costs of reducing greenhouse gases emissions outweigh the costs of global warming. The answer is that it's globally cheaper to reduce greenhouse gases, however every single country or individual, by being selfish, has interest to let the others pay the bill.
Re: (Score:3)
Agreed, life is not threatened by this. And humanity will almost certainly survive.
What would be lost is much of the Internet, many airports, most seaports, lots of railways, roads, pipelines, electric grids. Basically much of the infrastructure that supports what we call "civilization". As frail as that is, it is our species crowning achievement, and I for one do not want to see it damaged, let alone broken.
Yeah, what we have done could probably be rebuilt. But I'd rather we tried not to go that way.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course life can adapt. Even humans can adapt. The question is how much will it cost to adapt, and how many will die who cannot.
Re: (Score:2)
You left out, who will pay the costs of adapting.
Currently the industries that are generating vast wealth from the processes that release CO2 are using a portion of those immense financial resources in a public relations and political campaign to ensure that this cost does not come out of their revenue stream. The PR and political pay-off cost is a small fraction of what the cost of adaptation would be.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/rapid-change-feature.html [nasa.gov]
If temperatures were to rise 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, global mean temperature would far exceed that of the Eemian, when sea level was four to six meters higher than today, Hansen said.
"The paleoclimate record reveals a more sensitive climate than thought, even as of a few years ago. Limiting human-caused warming to 2 degrees is not sufficient," Hansen said. "It would be a prescription for disaster."
-snip-
The human-caused release of increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere also presents climate scientists with something they've never seen in the 65 million year record of carbon dioxide levels – a drastic rate of increase that makes it difficult to predict how rapidly the Earth will respond. In periods when carbon dioxide has increased due to natural causes, the rate of increase averaged about .0001 parts per million per year – in other words, one hundred parts per million every million years. Fossil fuel burning is now causing carbon dioxide concentrations to increase at two parts per million per year.
"Humans have overwhelmed the natural, slow changes that occur on geologic timescales," Hansen said.
I think its both the rate and direction of temperature change that is so worrisome. Life on Earth today is adapted to multi-millennial oscillations between familiar "glacial cool" and "ice age" conditions, not the hothouse Earth. Even if most species could migrate much faster, [guardian.co.uk] its unlikely to be of much help.
Re: (Score:2)
Adapting fast enough is one problem. There is another problem. Suppose that the previous warming was not caused by CO2 but something else. Regardless of whether CO2 is causing our warming, the massive amount of CO2 we have pumped into the atmosphere is changing the ph of the ocean. The ocean is at the bottom of the food change, if we fuck that up, we're truly fucked. The ph is already screwing up the coral reefs.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, there's no question *life* can adapt to these changes. The question is whether certain economies with enormous assets located in coastal regions can survive. 39% of Americans, for example, live in coastal counties. Although for political reasons that figure includes counties bordering the Great Lakes (America's "North Coast"), nonetheless the assets the US economy has enormous assets on the coast.
Of course *rate* makes a big difference. The extreme upper level IPCC estimate for sea level rise by 210
Re: (Score:3)
So ignore Al Gore and read what the actual scientists are saying.
FUD title (Score:4, Informative)
Or, we COULD say "Middle Miocene ice age 15 million years ago drastically lowered temperatures, lowered sea level 20m" as well, couldn't we?
Then it warmed, and melted, and sea levels rose. (The subject of the OP.)
Then it froze again, and sea levels dropped, since the last ice age ended only about 11,000 yrs ago.
It's almost like this shit is cyclic.
Re:FUD title (Score:4, Funny)
It's almost like this shit is cyclic.
Fortunately, this time we've invented magazines and toilet paper to cope with the problem.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's almost like this shit is cyclic.
That's right, it's just like a Ferris wheel.
So let's say you want to jump off the ride when you're near the top. Go ahead, no problem! After all, the next cycle would bring you back down to the ground anyway. It's all the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Great way to describe this! It's not that it's changing... it's how fast...
Re: (Score:3)
Plus, regardless of the cause, if things do indeed heat up so much so that water levels raise dramatically, we're in deep shit. Just look at how much of the population of the world lives on a coast.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
If it's the economics you're worried about, relocating people inland will still likely be far less costly than the radical lifestyle/infrastructure changes the tree huggers are advocating.
Who was burning fossil fuels then? (Score:3, Informative)
That was a long time before the bronze age.. Nobody was burning fossil fuels and dumping CO2 into the air. SO.... How does something like this happen? Can you believe there is some kind of natural process that we don't yet understand going on?
Problem with all of this is that if the process cycles are in the millions of years, it's going to be impossible to really know if your models are accurate because you only have a few thousand years of recorded history to validate your models with. Plus, you don't know if the system has been disturbed by some outside forces, say a meteor strike (think meteor crater) or volcanic eruption.
Interesting evidence guys, please keep looking into this..
Re:Who was burning fossil fuels then? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because there can't be both natural and man-made causes for warming and cooling? Really? That seems arbitrary, especially if it's just the argument from disbelief.
We've got very good evidence that there are climate cycles, and very good evidence that we should be cooling right now, but we're not. We have very good evidence that we're warming specifically because of our own actions, and that's overwhelming the natural cycles, both in speed of change and intensity.
If you are comfortable with natural cycles, then the physics of artificial change should not faze you, because the physics behind them is the same. If something can be changed by natural forces, then it can be affected by artificial ones of sufficient scale and intensity. Excluding the latter is simply ignoring evidence.
Re: (Score:3)
There are no 'artificial' causes of anything. We are all just as natural as any other life form.
Re: (Score:3)
So what? Do you propose we retire the word because of your extravagant reductionism?
Any time a sentient, tool-using organism decides to create or build something, whether it be for survival or amusement or any other purpose, that is an act of an artificier [thefreedictionary.com] and the result is artificial [thefreedictionary.com]. The word just means "man-made." We are distinct from the rest of the world because we have skill in manipulating it; that is the meaning of the word. More importantly, however, and not entirely implied by the word itself, we
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
natÂuÂral
Adjective
"Existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind."
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3A+natural [lmgtfy.com]
arÂtiÂfiÂcial
Adjective
"Made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, typically as a copy of something natural: "artificial light"."
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3A+artificial [lmgtfy.com]
First research what words actually mean. Only then try to tell others what they mean.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Except, essentially, is what you're saying is that
a) cyclic thing happened many times before, yet
b) THIS time it's "our" fault.
Until you provide substantial proof that THIS cycle is substantially different than all the others, I refuse to panic.
Re: (Score:2)
There weren't humans 5m years ago, but around then emerged the very first hominids, in fact we could be here because that warming or what caused it, if it did the selective pressure that caused the most adapted to the new environment to survive.
There are a lot of possible natural causes for global warmings and freezings, the actual problem is more centered on the speed of it, and if we are the cause this time. And maybe we won't be the best adapted for the new environment that we are creating.
Re: (Score:2)
How does something like this happen?
Asteroid impact or a supervolcano?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's still surprising to me that no one has ever heard of Milankovitch cycles [wikipedia.org]. There are three cycles that all work to change the overall climate. There are meters of ice in various spots around the world, and they all have layers of trapped gas bubbles that are used as indicators for what the atmosphere must have been like during that time period. The problem is that as things get older, the ice is thinner and thinner, so the further back you look the less certainty you have. Overall though, it's still pre
Re: (Score:2)
You read one article from your armchair and think, "hey good going, look into this"? There's been active research in climate cycles and mass extinction events since the 1800's.
Some causes are the precession, solar output, and meteors as you mention. CO2 and temperature are co-dependent feedback variables. Raise CO2, temperature rises. Raise temperature, CO2 rises. (same in reverse and hense we see a very cyclical 100 000 year pattern). It doesn't matter what triggers it. By all evidence we are on the up slo
Re: (Score:2)
It is all irrelevant anyway. I fully believe it's getting warmer, the seas are rising, and man is a significant chunk of the cause. So what? The fact is that to make any real difference will require people to drastically change their lives and their standards of living. Even if we do so it may not make any difference. Even if you get everyone in the US on board that's just 300 million people. How about the third world that is just starting to develop? How will they bear the costs of reducing output o
gloval warming? (Score:2)
Did you mean 'man is THE ONLY possible cause for a gloval wearing'?
I have gloves, when I wear them I do feel a certain amount of warming, so I guess you're good.
Never mind.
High water mark? (Score:2)
And what most folks are missing... (Score:4, Insightful)
How many thousands of years did it take for that warming... the equivalent of *one* century? But no, zillions of barrels of oil and coal, burned, can't *possibly* affect the whole world's climate, no, no....
mark
Try 30-40 years (Score:2)
40 years ago we were going into a deep freeze according to our climate "scientists"
So you've only got 30-40 years to explain the sudden reversal in terms of human behavior.
You don't have the whole of the industrial age because our course has recently reversed according to climate "scientists."
Re:And what most folks are missing... (Score:5, Insightful)
The interglacial periods coincide with variations in the earths orbit.
eccentricity, tilt and precession all interacting. So yes it is pretty well understood why glaciation occurs. Yes it has been taken into account. No it does no account for the current changes being seen.
Re: (Score:2)
Climates change, then and now (Score:5, Insightful)
Before anyone smugly proclaims that this proves humans aren't responsible for climate change, remember that it's possible for some phenomenon to have multiple causes. It's entirely possible for there to be both natural and man-made causes for variations in climate. Giving examples of natural causes doesn't do anything to weaken the argument against anthropogenic climate change in this epoch.
If climate change is currently man-made, or partially man-made, or being made worse by human activity, then it's still worth bending every effort to slow or reverse it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"If climate change is currently man-made, or partially man-made, or being made worse by human activity, then it's still worth bending every effort to slow or reverse it."
No, it isnt.
It seems to be wholly UN-natural: (Score:2)
Climatologists generally agree the natural trend was (relatively slowly) taking us into another ice age. I think this means the overall natural contribution to global warming is less than zero.
What is also unnatural is the rate of warming, which appears to be orders of magnitude faster than anything since the dinosaurs were wiped out (not counting smaller variations less than 2C).
As temperatures rise, scientists continue to... (Score:2, Informative)
As temperatures rise
Temperature isn't rising.
scientists continue to worry about the effects of melting Antarctic ice
Scientists are presently worried about the credibility of their models, because reality has failed to comply.
Re: (Score:3)
Scientists aren't cherry picking data to make absurd claims like "temperature isn't rising". They are not dishonest cretins posting pre-canned bullshit anonymously on Internet forums.
No it didn't (Score:2)
The paper is about the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, not about sea levels.
Good (Score:4, Funny)
There are no socioeconomic problems that can't be solved by a good 20 meter rise in the sea level.
much bigger more recently (Score:2)
People need to remember that sea levels have risen about 130m in just the last 20000 years (and go up and down by that amount about every 100000 years).
The article makes an interesting point, namely that there may be some additional sea level rise if temperatures go up again, but that's always been expected.
Its a conspiracy (Score:2)
Re:Right, so... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is possible to have events with broadly the same symptoms that actually have different underlying causes. (Although as others point out the timescale of the symptoms is massively different).
Re: (Score:2)
Of course humans are the cause of global warming: Any idiot can see that average global temperature is inversely correlated with the number of pirates [venganza.org]. There's good news though: libertarian Somalia has taken the lead on increasing piracy in the world, thus proving that rational self-interest will always solve environmental problems.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but if anyone's getting money from climate change research, it's oil company-funded research denying that anything's happening.
Not so sure (Score:4, Interesting)
A quick review of cities in the US at or around sea level where 20M rise would be a disaster include...
LA, SF, SD, SJ, Portland, Seattle, Honolulu, Houston, Miami, Jacksonville, DC, Baltimore, Phili, Newark, Boston. That is probably about 1/2 the US population. Insurance even if you have it will not be useful, the companies will default. Insurance is for sharing risk. If 50% of your policy owners experience disaster, the company will not have the resources to pay it out. Life will certainly adapt, but probably in a Mad Max kind of way. Although I am not sure I buy the 20M number by 2100. That implies close to 6in/year and we are running closer to 1in/year. Obviously the faster the rise the more difficult to adapt. Although faster might cause us to abandon places like New Orleans instead of moating it like the netherlands does.
Re: (Score:2)
Although faster might cause us to abandon places like New Orleans instead of moating it like the netherlands does.
No, that's exactly what we will do. Expect a gazillion dollars thrown into concrete barriers to "save the cities." And their factories, and cars, and power plants...
Re: (Score:2)
The worry of the Koch brothers et al., and many of today's Slashdotters, seems to be that life will adapt in a Mad Marx kind of way instead.
Re: (Score:2)
probably in a Mad Max kind of way.
I'm ready. I've welded bull bars* to the front bumper of my Holden.
*Quite handy even before the holocaust what with all the Idaho Stop laws we're getting here.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be too obvious. Last sentence below seems to have some importance:
“The interglacials and glacials coincide with cyclic changes in the Earth's orbit. Three orbital variations contribute to interglacials. The first is a change in the Earth's orbit around the sun, or eccentricity. The second is a shift in the tilt of the Earth's axis, the obliquity. The third is precession, or wobbling motion of Earth's axis.[1] Warm summers in the northern hemisphere occur when that hemisphere is tilted towar
Re:Must have been dinosaur-made global warming! (Score:4, Funny)
See what happens when dinosaurs industrialize and drive cars!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It mainly was due to the carbon emissions of the Giant Ground Sloth's V-8 SUVs and homes. More precisely, not the vehicles and dwellings themselves but owning to their furriness the sloths would always crank up the AC to absurd cooling levels thus burning obscene amounts of fossil fuels, The global warming and the Sloth's thermostats thus played out a vicious cycle of positive feedback.