From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu Jul 25 2002 - 12:36:15 MDT
On Thursday, July 25, 2002, at 11:33 am, Charles Hixson wrote:
> spike66 wrote:
>
>> ...
>> Scientists seem to agree on at least one aspect of global warming: any
>> sea level change will be gradual. No single person will notice much
>> sea
>> level rise in their natural lifetimes. If this phenomenon is
>> presented as
>
>> ...
>
> Unfortunately, I don't believe that there is the kind of unanimity that
> you are predicting. And I don't believe that it would be warranted.
> Geologists tend, by and large, to not consider that extensive changes
> could happen rapidly. This probably dates back to the Theory of
> Uniformity (Lyle). But that's not what the evidence looks like.
> Changes, like earthquakes, happen at a fractal level. Most of them are
> too small to worry about, but sometimes a big one will come by
> quickly. If the temperature went up ? 5 degrees? (I think in
> Farenheit, so you could translate that to 2.5 degrees) the ice sheets
> on land would melt rather quickly. I would expect the sea level to
> increase an amount measured in feet in a time measured in decades. Of
> course, for the temperature to go up 5 degrees, the thermal ballast
> would already need to have been warmed a good deal. But it has been.
> Glaciers in Alaska are currently retreating rapidly.
>
> Now a foot or two isn't so much that a dike couldn't keep it out, but
> that's expensive, and it would take a BIG dike (or a series of them).
> I suppose we could ask the people of the Netherlands what to expect it
> to cost, and what the liabilities were. But it wouldn't be trivial.
> And I don't really see the timing as being predictable. (Well, in
> theory. But I don't feel that we know enough to build a good model.)
A quick google search (hail google!) leads me to
<http://www.ocean98.org/fact.htm> by the
- The sea level has risen with an average of 4-10 inches (10 to 25 cm)
over the past 100 years
- scientists expect this rate to increase.
- Sea levels will continue rising even if the climate has stabilized,
because the ocean reacts slowly to changes.
- If all the world's ice melted, the oceans would rise 200 ft (66 mtr).
4-10 inches in the past century would seem to be the low-end estimate.
But a high-end estimate seems related to that last item about the oceans
rising 200 feet if all the ice melted. That means that oceans would
rise 2 feet for every 1% of ice melting. (Or 2.4 inches for every
1/10th of one percent of ice melting.)
This could be more immediate and disasterous for my plans to live a long
time in Florida. My entire county is less than two feet above sea
level. We are flat and barely above water as it is. Storm surges often
come miles inland just because the air-pressure reduction in a storm
raises the ocean level slightly. I would hate to see my entire county
disappear, along with my hometown, NASA, the Everglades, all the
beaches, etc.
Does anybody have any other figures for past ocean rise and future
predictions?
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
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