Researchers - Sea Level Rises Could Be (All Together Now!) Much Faster Than Expected

[hatrack]

Rises in sea levels during the coming decades could be much higher than previously believed, say experts. A new report by a consortium of scientists from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK, and research centres in Germany and the US says that sea levels rose by an average of 1.6 m every hundred years when the Earth was last as warm as it is predicted to be by the end of the present century.

The report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience in December, suggests that current predictions of sea level rises may be too optimistic. In the last 20 years, the rising of sea levels has become one of the most ominous indications of climate change and one of the most frequent subjects for environmental debate.

In the last interglacial period (134 000 to 119 000 years ago), sea levels reached around 6 m above the present rate because of the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. The consortium’s results provide the first hard evidence of the sea’s rise to these levels. Such new studies are providing proof that sea levels are rising higher than scientists had previously believed, and it is becoming clear that governments have to act faster to mitigate the effects of climate change. In the last century, the Earth experienced a warming of 0.7°C, and between 1993 and 2006 sea levels rose by 3.3 mm a year on average, whereas the 2001 IPCC (the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report predicted an annual rise of less than 2 mm.

Professor Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton’s School of Ocean and Earth Science, said: ‘There is currently much debate about how fast future sea-level rises might be. Several researchers have made strong theoretical cases that the rates of rise projected from models in the recent IPCC Fourth Assessment are too low. This is because the IPCC estimates mainly concern thermal expansion and surface ice melting, while not quantifying the impact of dynamic ice-sheet processes. Until now, there have been no data that sufficiently constrain the full rate of past sea-level rises above the present level.

EDIT

http://ec.europa.eu/research/headlines/news/article_08_01_28_en.html

[aquart]

1. Not faster than I expect.

[OneBlueSky]

2. yet another environmental crisis that no one in power is paying any attention to . . .

one day they're all going to wake up and find that the planet that supports human and other life has lost it's ability to do so . . . Earth will survive, of course -- but humans and other species probably won't . . .

[Mountainman]

3. Well, maybe there is some beach property in my future!

I live about 10 miles from the ocean.

[Systematic Chaos]

4. Sorry to sound like a stuck record, but ONCE AGAIN...

...what happens when it's not just a steady drip, drip, drip of melting ice, but rather huge multi-hundred-square-mile ginormous chunks of ice that slide into the ocean all at once? Jesus on a pogo stick this is gonna blow.

[happyslug]

8. Except for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, it will be drop, drop, drop

The reason for this is that most Glaciers are grounded ABOVE sea level, and as such will MELT drop by drop. In fact as they melt, the Glacier will become lighter and they be less push down hill to the Ocean (Through they will be more water UNDER the Glacier to act as a lube, but most experts believe the lighter weight will slow the Glaciers down more then the additional lube will speed it up).

Now the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is grounded BELOW sea level. This means it can break down and start to float. When it starts to float it has to replace the same amount of water the Glacier is when it floats. Water can lube the West AntarctiC Ice Sheet from the SEA (And sea water freezes at lower temperatures than fresh water do to the salt that is in Seawater). Thus you can have sea water affecting the bottom of the Ice Sheet, forcing them into ice Shelves (I.e. floating on the water NOT grounded on the ground as are Ice Sheets). It is possible for the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet to Collapse (Probably in March when it is at its smallest size do to the end of the Antarctic summer).

This is what is believe to have happened 120,000 years ago in the "Madhouse Century". More on the Madhouse Century:

http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html
http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/envis/doc98html/globalcll1119.html

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Thanks for the links -- excellent reading

This is EXACTLY how climate changes occur -- a slowish onset of a few hundred years building up to a few decades of abruptly alternating heat and cold.

I recall reading in several articles that during the warm-up at the end of the last great glaciation 13 kYA, average temperatures in the Arctic increased by close to 60 degrees fahrenheit within a decade or so. Previous returns to cold weather involved similar drops in temperature in a similarly short time.

The record is starting to show that these events are pretty similar. They come in two broad classes, Heinrich Events (cooling) and Dangaard-Oeschger Events (warming). Some climatologists have made the case that there may be a periodicity to them. But still, we seem to have kick-started the process this time.

--p!

[tom_paine]

5. Who could have foreseen..?

:rofl:

[pscot]

6. If it gets people's attention

I say, the sooner the better.

[NMDemDist2]

7. 6 meters??? Holy Chit, that's almost 20 feet!

:wow:

[happyslug]

9. That is what will happen if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will collapse.

For more see my previous post.

[XemaSab]

10. Shit! I'm late! Dammit!

:o

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Can we use MFTE in headlines from now on? Saves typing. nt

[kestrel91316]

13. Works for me.

[kestrel91316]

12. Heh heh. I see they've been taking a cue from MY predictions right here. lol