Sea level rise doubles in 150 years
Categories:
· Increase blamed on fossil fuel use since 19th century
· Cut in greenhouse gases futile, researchers say
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday November 25, 2005
The Guardian
Global warming is doubling the rate of sea level rise around the world, but attempts to stop it by cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions are likely to be futile, leading researchers will warn today.
The oceans will rise nearly half a metre by the end of the century, forcing coastlines back by hundreds of metres, the researchers claim. Scientists believe the acceleration is caused mainly by the surge in greenhouse gas emissions produced by the development of industry and introduction of fossil fuel burning.
Article continues
Today's warning comes from US researchers at Rutgers University in New Jersey who analysed cores drilled from different sites along the eastern seaboard. By drilling down 500 metres through layers of different sediments and using chemical dating techniques, the scientists were able to work out where beaches and dry land were over the past 100m years.
The analysis showed that during the past 5,000 years, sea levels rose at a rate of around 1mm each year, caused largely by the residual melting of icesheets from the previous ice age. But in the past 150 years, data from tide gauges and satellites show sea levels are rising at 2mm a year.
"The main thing that has happened since the 19th century and the beginning of the modern observation has been the widespread increase in fossil fuel use and more greenhouse gases," said Professor Kenneth Miller, who led the study. "We can say the increase we're seeing is much higher than we've seen in the immediate past and it is due to humans."
The rising tide is expected to make oceans 40cm higher by 2100. "This is going to cause more beach erosion. Beaches are going to move back and houses will be destroyed," he said. Rising sea levels will also add to the destructive power of storm surges triggered by hurricanes such as Katrina which battered New Orleans and surrounding areas this year.
The research, published in the US journal Science, comes a week before the countries that embraced the Kyoto protocol meet for the first time in Montreal to discuss future agreements for cutting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions further. While Britain has adopted the protocol, the government has suggested that voluntary targets rather than the mandatory cuts demanded by Kyoto could be a more practical way to trim greenhouse gas emissions.
According to Prof Miller, there is little chance of slowing the rising tide caused by global warming. "There's not much one can do about sea level rise. It's clear that even if we strictly obeyed the Kyoto accord, it's still going to continue to warm. Personally, I don't think we're going to affect CO2 emissions enough to make a difference, no matter what we do. The Bush administration should stop asking whether temperatures are globally rising and admit the scientific fact that they are, but then turn the question around politically and say: 'We can't really do anything about this on any kind of cost basis at all'," he said.
In two further studies, also published in Science, a team of German researchers put figures on the extent to which the climate is warming compared with any time during the past 650,000 years. They report that levels of the most ubiquitous greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, are rising 200 times faster than could be caused by any natural process. Carbon dioxide levels are now 380 parts per million, some 27% higher and methane levels 130% higher than at any time over the period they analysed.
The researchers measured levels of greenhouse gases locked into a core of ice drilled from Antarctica. At more than 3km long, the ice core holds pockets of air that were in the earth's atmosphere from nearly 1m years ago until the present day.
The cores are the best record left on the planet of the earth's environmental history. By analysing the gases locked up in 10cm chunks of ice, the researchers can reconstruct the gases that made up the atmosphere at any time from present day until before the four previous ice ages.
"If you really want to make a case for global warming, you just have to look at the past 1,000 years, because the current increase in carbon dioxide stands out dramatically," said lead author Dr Thomas Stocker at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Ed Brook, a climate scientist at Oregon State University said the rise in greenhouse gases ... was a stark indication of the influence industry was having on the environment. "The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the industrial revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years. There is now no question this is due to human influence."
Unless you would refute all commonly realised knowledge..
Simply as Humanity would like to 'reserve' some 'space' on the surface does NOT mean that the natural oscillations of climate will 'notice'.
The contrivance of a 'imposing names', exampled with the phrase "Polar Amplification", seems to be made with little regard to the existent natural processes (the 'Polar Regions' are NOT 'reacting first', but are in FACT acting in turn and are LAST) that still (and NOW) show the effects of warming that began ~15,000 years ago, when the snow cover began to move back from the edge of what is now just north of the State of Texas.
The Ice and Snow are gone from that region, but the warming cycle still continues. It is that on the scale of 'periodicity' observed for 'climate', it is NOT POSSIBLE to VALIDLY produce a trend from only a few decades of data. Thus it is that those charts of 'temperature', and the NUMBERS incorporated, are only showing a 'tide returning', NOT 'unnatural warming'. There is NO valid reason to run from the 'sight' calling "Doom and Woe' is upon you all!" One million data points in the last 30 years is only defining a statistically insignificant time-frame of the overall climate oscillation, 100 Million data points in 50, 100 or 200 years, are of no more help in validating either model or opinion.
The trend of Human Population redistribution will continue to see sprawl over presently existing 'green' regions, like the Amazonian basin. Sprawl will continue into those presently less densely occupied regions, taking the ‘best places first. Then population growth will ‘fill in’ the gaps to produce a ‘unified human sprawl surface material’.
This ‘sprawl’ trend, along with its linked interactions with turbulence and weather patterning, is produced from Surface kinetic energy induction rate and distribution alterations. These alterations, these redistributions, produced by ‘sprawl’ surface rematerialing will be producing further changes to weather and regional 'climates'.
It is important to notice this as it is the REDISTRIBUTION and ALTERATION of kinetic energy induction by the planetary surface that is producing alterations to weather patterning seen in events associated with, rainfall, floods, snow, etc. All these events are driven by turbulence produced by Conduction and Convection of kinetic energy.
Observations of 'Human produced effect' are not so much of ‘climate change’ but of ‘redistribution of turbulence’ induced by alterations to the planetary surface. Humanity IS making these alterations and is doing so unheeding of the effect our constructions are having on the distribution and rate of kinetic energy inductions CONDUCTED to the atmosphere/ocean and transported as CONVECTION.
Climate alteration is a process of thousands of years, not tens or even hundreds. Notice the irregular periodicity of those Periods that contain multiple glacial events (above), where ice and snow recedes back to the Polar Regions, and then returns across the surface.
These total periods are within the 'troughs' of a very LONG and IRREGULAR oscillation. So the 'blocks of time' in 'glaciation period bar chart' represent the placement of 'troughs' within the overall Planetary Climate oscillation.
Within these 'troughs' occurs an EVIDENCED secondary set of oscillations, producing the fall and rise, the ebb and flow' of ICE & SNOW across the surface.
All of this activity is WITHIN the OVERALL 'trough' of the LONG term irregularly periodic oscillation.
Within these 'short and ice prone' Periods, Million of years are encompassed; the present PERIOD is only TWO MILLION years into its progression. Periods of 20 to 80 Million years ago are in a 'Primary Crest' and the Secondary "Peak and Dip" are 'marked' in geological evidence by sea level alterations, as there where no glaciational periods, and Turbulence does not leave traces. The sea levels where higher beyond the last ~3 Nillion years, but that is not within a situation that is presently observed.
Are we to listen to the book selling ‘climate prophets’ for more MILLIONS of years yet?
Are we to fund ‘climate prophets’ in their continuance with BILLIONS of dollars for the MILLIONS of years left in this cycle?
I do not hope so!
See
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/312
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/348
for more detail.
What is it exactly the few expect Humanity to do? Link arms, march to the nearest beach and force back the waters?
Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
Seen it before, it isn't getting any truer
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/03/global-warming-is-nothing-new.html
Quick answer to the denialist. Current warming is not part of a natural cycle.
Ice n' sea.
What is needed to be distinguished is the difference tween PERMANENCE and PERSISTENCE.
Climate presents persistence only, NOT permanence, and as such Humanity needs to CEASE listening to those platforming 'change is doom' as all that we need do is MOVE away from the ' rising water'. There is no 'catastrophe' to be seen; Humanity IS mobile, so moving is NOT an issue, is it. Such has been done for millennia and will NOT cease.
Humanity will ebb and flow as does all of 'nature', there is no need to 'cry doom' if a 'city' is the only concern, perhaps they should be build with differing needs and concerns to begin with NOW that Humanity is 'smarter'. I can still see those 'Merchant Princes' bemoaning 5000 years ago the need to move those 'Port Facilities' to 'higher ground'. The 'Princes' moved, and the Mediterranean coast is littered with submerged "Port Facilities".
The situation that WE ALL observe NOW is the 'end play' of the warming process that began showing obvious indications about 15,000 years ago.
From that point of time, the snow and ice began to retreat (from just North of what is now Texas), and in general away from the equatorial regions to NOW be seen in the Polar Regions and some 'high places'.
This 'warming process' was, and still is, NATURAL and ongoing, with the Polar Regions reacting IN TURN and LAST within this NATURAL warming process.
The ONLY ISSUE of UNIQUNESS needing to be realised is that all this is happening NOW.
The RISE in median SURFACE TEMEPRATURE is DIRECTLY correlated to the rise in Human Population, and the SPRAWL of habitat linked to that population rise.
*Please refer to:-
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/348
and
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/312
for more detail.
The PRESENT Primary Trough is only 2 to 3 MILLION years 'old'. The BEHAVIOR we are observing is particular to THIS 'oscillatory mode'. The behavior exhibited is in recurring glaciations (again over the past 2 MILLION years) and this occurs in an IRREGULARLY periodic manner.
At times within the overall climate of 20 t0 70 MILLION years past, it was that a DIFFERENT 'climate mode' was being exhibited, no longer in a 'PRIMARY TROUGH' but in a 'PRIMARY CREST'.
Within these periods (20 to 70 MILLION years ago and in a PRIMARY CREST mode of the overall Climate oscillation) the SECONDARY oscillations would still occur however, but would NOT dip into 'glaciations'.
This is observable in the slide showing the 'glaciation periods' in the articles here in linked. The Primary Crest is seen as the long blank periods tween the 'blocks' of the periods containing recurring glaciations.
You would see in geological record of "Primary Crest" periods (more likely) division of Secondary PEAK and DIP by SEA LEVEL alterations, as TURBULENCE leaves few traces otherwise that would survive till NOW.
It is NOT VALID to 'cross boundaries' UNNOTICED as these 'few' (so often quoted) would like to do. So there will be a little further 'rise' in sea levels, but NOT in line with any patterning of behavior OUTSIDE of the past 2 MILLION years.
What is being seen is the 'endplay' of a 15000 year warming period. What will happen is that a small rebalancing of FRESH water will occur. Generally about 1% of water is 'fresh & liquid', 2% is 'fresh and trapped' (in atmosphere, as ice/snow or in frozen earth).
The Secondary 'Peak' climate is heading for would see this balance alter to represent more 'fresh water' in the atmosphere, as well as liquid. HOWEVER that is NOT to say the shift will place more water into the ocean, as increases in verdant land surface will take up that fresh water into natural water courses growing around the sub-artic regions.
The alterations to weather patterning are being affected in an UNNATURAL manner, but NOT by 'greenhouse warming'. By rematerialing the surface, what Humanity IS doing is producing variation in WEATHER PATTERNING by altering the distribution across the surface of Surface produced Kinetic Energy induction (in both regional location and amount/rate).
Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
Changing sea levels, how often will we hear?
To quote from a link I have given often enough:-
["Many glacial advances and retreats have occurred during the last billion years of Earth history. These glaciations are not randomly distributed in time. Instead, they are concentrated into four time intervals."]
["During each of these intervals, many glacial advances and retreats occurred. For example, over 60 glacial advances and retreats have occurred during the last 2 million years."]
["If "ice age" is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today."]
***["Our modern climate represents a very short,]***
***[ warm period between glacial advances."] ***
The seas have never risen in a uniform manner, and have been in an overall 'rise' for thousands of years. So the seas will rise by '40 cm' (~15.5 inches) in 100 years, is 'beach erosion' by this process at all relevant? No it is not.
You can document sea level alterations in a more direct manner by looking at now submerged 'permanent human infrastructure'. This is predominately in the Mediterranean region and covers the last 5000 years.
Again you see an attempt to look at a STATISTICALLY insignificant 150 year period and attempt to infer a link to 'greenhouse gases' and 'emissions', which is all that is ever done, and it is this platforming of inference that is now being scrutinised.
Such gases might have risen, and seas have risen, but seas have been rising for millennia, so why is it presented as a 'greenhouse resultant'.
Winter storms cut power with humans being killed, why is this noteworthy in regard to 'climate change'?
It is only NOW that the 'greenhouse platformers' wish everyone to think that nature is perfect, uniform and unchanging, or changing only in a uniform manner?
This is seen with the perpetual platforming of 'supposition and assumption hidden as 'science' in the repeated mention of 'Ice cores' from 650,000 to I,000,000 years age, which cannot be considered to contain anything representative of the atmosphere of the period in any valid manner. Any water would have been removed to begin with, the gases to not freeze and are not deposited within ice but trapped tween snow crystals. Rain might have fallen also. The ice is produce by compression.
Why is it constantly 'tried on'? It is to perpetuate the 'scare campaign', to keep the 'opinion' in front of you all the time? When the 'scientists' are asked to justify their 'scare and innuendo' and asked to cease when unable to do so, the situation of this scrutiny is platformed as 'suppression of opinion', but it IS such as it should be expressions of SCIENCE these individuals are making.
The PROBLEM IS they only give OPINION of doom even after 20 years of doing so. The issue at the base of these 'interpretive reports' is assumptions presented in a factualised manner, forming the dangerous 'assumption chain' often seen with attached 'convenient numeracy'.
First, consider the extract from an outline of the 'greenhouse effect':-
-----
[" CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat (outgoing infrared radiation). (Incoming sun rays are in the ultraviolet spectrum.) Without this layer of insulation, the "natural greenhouse effect', temperatures on Earth would be about -17degree Celsius. Thus, increased CO2 in the inner atmosphere (or troposphere, ~6 miles up) is exaggerating the natural greenhouse effect and increasing heat trapped in the troposphere."]
-----
-: then realise that
(1) The first mistake in the 'greenhouse concepts' is that 'HEAT' (the measure of the average KINETIC ENERGY of the atoms molecules of the sample' cannot be trapped, it cannot escape to the Vacuum of space to begin with once it is generated.
This is WHY the 'quoted version' of the 'greenhouse effect' has mentioned that: - ["Over the past several decades the troposphere has actually swollen by several hundred feet due to the warming and thermal expansion of the air."]
-: as the PRESSURE (related to the average KINETIC VELOCITY of the molecules/atoms of the sample) is increasing. Realise that the only constraint OF the atmosphere is GRAVITY.
(2) This is NOT insulation, "Heat", measured on a scale as a 'temperature', is the average kinetic energy of the molecules/atoms of the sample, and is unable to leave the biosphere to open space. The KINETIC VELOCITY of the molecules/atoms comprising the atmosphere is the expression of the KINETIC ENERGY they possess. This can only leave the atmosphere if the MOLECULES/ATOMS actually LEAVE.
The mistake with 'greenhouse science' is to link with attempts to present PHOTONIC REEMITTENCE by these molecules as 'blackbody radiation' then infer a 'temperature' from the 'readings'. However, the energy reemitted as Secondary Photons after interaction of a molecule and incident Photon is infact the realisation of the energy involved in AND released by the interaction as NOT being 'converted to heat', that is increasing the kinetic velocity of the molecule.
At this point the 'greenhouse theory' is immediately **REVERSING** the known SCIENCE of the situation, and this WAS known in the THREE FAILED attempts in the 20th Century to have validated the 'greenhouse concepts'. It should have been very clear at least after the THIRD FAILURE. As such, satellites are NOT taking a temperature reading of the atmosphere OR the surface, these 'measurements' are of RADIATION and the Photons OF this radiation that are escaping the Photonic cascade, representing energy that was NOT converted to kinetic energy, and cannot be VALIDLY regarded as a providing a 'measure of temperature'.
Also note figure 1vs.jpg again in
http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/312
and note WHY only energy in the lower third of the UV Spectrum, and also the upper and lower Visible spectrum (consumed by Photosynthesis) becomes surface incident. Note also the H2O is constrained below its ice and condensation altitudes by GRAVITY.
What the 'global greenhouse warmers' still have not done is show HOW CO2 can warm the atmosphere, they have failed THREE Times already and so now simply try to talk as IF they have done so. There is a problem, it is just NOT involving any supposed 'greenhouse effect'.
See link http://www.climateimc.org/?q=node/312
Your's, Peter K. Anderson a.k.a. Hartlod(tm)
Member of the Public, NSW, Australia.
From the PC of Peter K Anderson
E-Mail: Hartlod@bigpond.com
source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1650439,00.html
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