Monday, June 26, 2006

Sea-Level Rise

Global sea-level rise … apparently, over the last 18,000 years since the peak of the last Ice Age, global sea-levels have risen more than 120 metres. The IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) estimates a rise – factoring in global warming – of 110 to 770mm over the next century. Now, let me get this straight: the average per century rise over the last 18,000 years has been 670mm, which is much more than the mean of the IPCC rate. Could it be that the sea level rise we are presently seeing is just a fluctuation? Remember, we're still not out of the last Ice Age. Anyway, we’ve got a hundred years to raise our sea defences by a maximum of three-quarters of a metre – that’s 7.7mm a year. Goodness gracious, we’re all doomed.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Frankly though, even this level is of particular interest to the heavily populated pacific islands and to people living in already-flooding deltas such as in Bangladesh.

B>

Anonymous said...

Mmmm, but check out this: http://www.envirotruth.org/myth6.cfm

Anonymous said...

Envirotruth is simply a PR front for a partisan right wing think tank. http://www.nationalcenter.org/

I'd trust them about as much as the tobacco company scientists that stated that there was no link between smoking and cancer in the 70s and 80s. I get a serious sense of deja vu from these guys. In any case these guys aren't doing scientific research, they're simply writing press releases that suit their purposes.

In my opinion for credible environment reportage try www.realclimate.org

A large number of climatologists with a variety of different opinions have their papers listed on their site. The vast majority of them support the global warming hypothesis but they do publish dissenting opinions.

Anonymous said...

I’ve already looked there, Jose. I particularly like this article on there http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 about CO2 appearing after global warming has occurred (in ice cores). Apparently this does not disprove CO2 as the cause of those global warming episodes. I can see this sort of thinking being used in the defence of arsonists: “My client did not set the fire. I can prove to you that that the real cause of it was the smoke.” It’s the kind of twisted thinking someone uses when they’re losing an argument, or rather when they desperately want to connect their research to the present funding bounty.

Anonymous said...

Alan Titchmarsh's British Isles, A Natural History, which was on Sky last night was interesting. Especially the idea of the ice-sheets which covered the Northern Hemisphere in the last ice-age actually compressing the teutonic plates to such an extent that they began to be influenced by the mantle beneath the crust and therefore melted.

He was in Scotland (I think) showing an ancient beach that was many, many metres above sea-level all through the displacement caused by the crust rising after the melting of the ice-sheet.

For our sea-level to attain that of the ancient beach now would mean one hell of a rise. I hope it gets repeated as I watched it whilst dozing (no relection on the program's quality, blame must be laid firmly on the shoulders of a BBQ, too much beer and a whisky nightcap)

Anonymous said...

CO2 only appearing at sea level well after the warming process has started shouldn't be terribly surprising to anyone who realises the atmosphere is heavily heterogenous vertically.

We've already seen villages in Alaska falling through the now-melting icepack. Of course, this was reported by the NYT who are left-wing treason mongers.

B>

Anonymous said...

Please correct me if I'm wrong, Bruce, but my impression was that the heating of the seas causes the CO2 to come out of solution.

Well, the 'left-wing treason monger' are usually the ones who use AGW as a club to beat evil capitalists.

Anonymous said...

I can't answer that, Alex. We've only been looking at the ice caps for a century or so (and not as closely as we are now), which is not enough time to know what's 'normal' or otherwise. (btw there was also the mini Ice Age when people could go skating on the Thames each winter) Also, back around about 1940 the Arctic was hotter than it is now, which doesn't bear any relation to CO2 output. It's one of those things that keeps me skeptical. One of many things.