Rising Sea Level Puts Atlantic Coast at Risk: Report.....

[MMC]

The sea level on a stretch of the US Atlantic coast that features the cities of New York, Norfolk and Boston is rising up to four times faster than the global average, a report said Sunday.

This increases the flood risk for one of the world's most densely-populated coastal areas and threatens wetland habitats, said a study reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The localised acceleration is thought to be caused by a disruption of Atlantic current circulation.

"As fresh water from the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet enters the ocean, it disrupts this circulation, causing the currents to slow down," USGS research oceanographer and study co-author Kara Doran explained.

"When the Gulf Stream current weakens, sea levels rise along the coast and the greatest amount of rise happens north of where the Gulf Stream leaves the coast (near Cape Hatteras)."

The hotspot stretches from Cape Hatteras, Northern Carolina to north of Boston, Massachusetts and also includes other big cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The USGS report was based on actual tide level measurements, said Doran. Other studies have shown a similar hotspot using climate models.....snip~

http://news.yahoo.com/rising-sea-level-puts-us-atlantic-coast-risk-171554622.html
AFP – 5 hrs ago<<<<<

They are also saying this could cause NY to like flood every 3 years. Just what do people think is going to happen with these coastal cities if measures are not taken? This time no models actual Tidal measurement.

[Peter1469]

The Netherlands have solutions.

[MMC]

What like terra-forming?

[Peter1469]

They reclaim a lot of land from the North Sea.

[MMC]

You saw how the Arabs built Palm island with others technology and what they Call the World Right? That won't work. As Soon as those areas get hit by a earthquakes, liquidfaction is going to take place and much of that is going to be destroyed.

[wingrider]

not to worry to much here folks the article says around 2100 that is like 90 years from now,,the rise will be gradual culminating at around 2 to 3 feet overall in that length of time,, What? you don't think we can build dikes and such in that length of time,, ? I think this is good news that we can be warned about this sea level change in plenty of time to prepare for it,,

[waltky]

Real proof seas are rising...
:shocked:
Five islands in Solomons submerged: study
Sun, May 08, 2016 - RISING SEAS: The five islands that had vanished were all vegetated reef islands up to five hectares that were occasionally used by fishermen, but were not populated


Five islands have disappeared in the Solomon Islands due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, according to an Australian study that scientists said yesterday could provide valuable insights for future research. A further six reef islands have been severely eroded in a remote area of the Solomons, the study said, with one experiencing 10 houses being swept into the sea between 2011 and 2014. “At least 11 islands across the northern Solomon Islands have either totally disappeared over recent decades or are currently experiencing severe erosion,” the study published in Environmental Research Letters said. “Shoreline recession at two sites has destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations.”

The scientists said the five that had vanished were all vegetated reef islands up to five hectares that were occasionally used by fishermen but were not populated. “They were not just little sand islands,” University of Queensland senior research fellow and lead author of the study Simon Albert told reporters. It is feared that the rise in sea levels would cause widespread erosion and inundation of low-lying atolls in the Pacific.

Albert said that the Solomons was considered a sea-level hotspot because rises there are almost three times higher than the global average. The researchers looked at 33 islands using aerial and satellite imagery from 1947 to 2014, combined with historical insight from local knowledge. They found that rates of shoreline recession were substantially higher in areas exposed to high wave energy, indicating a “synergistic interaction” between sea-level rise and waves, which Albert said could prove useful for future study.

Those islands which were exposed to higher wave energy — in addition to sea-level rise — were found to have a greatly accelerated loss compared with the more sheltered islands. “This provides a bit of an insight into the future,” he said. “There’s these global trends that are happening but the local responses can be very, very localized.” For now, some communities in the Solomons are already adapting to the changed conditions. “In addition to these village relocations, Taro, the capital of Choiseul Province is set to become the first provincial capital globally to relocate residents and services due to the threat of sea-level rise,” the study said.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/05/08/2003645794

[Peter1469]

It happens.

[waltky]

2m would put a lot of Florida underwater...
:shocked:
‘Sleeping giant’ glacier may lift seas 2m: study
Fri, May 20, 2016 - A rapidly melting glacier atop East Antarctica is on track to lift oceans at least 2m, and could soon pass a “tipping point” of no return, researchers said on Wednesday.


To date, scientists have mostly worried about the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets as dangerous drivers of sea level rise. The new study, following up on earlier work by the same team, has identified a third major threat to hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas worldwide. “I predict that before the end of the century the great global cities of our planet near the sea will have 2m or 3m high sea defenses all around them,” said Martin Siegert, codirector of the Grantham Institute and Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, and the study’s senior author. From the air, the contours of Totten Glacier — roughly the size of France — are invisible because the entire Antarctic continent is covered by a seamless, kilometers-thick blanket of snow and ice.

However, geologically it is a distinct — and volatile — beast. Last year, Siegert and colleagues revealed that the underbelly of the glacier — most of which sits below sea level — is being eroded by warm, salty sea water flowing hundreds of kilometers inland after passing through underwater “gateways.” As it does, the portion of the glacier resting on water rather than rock increases, accelerating the pace of disintegration. The new study, published in Nature, used satellite data to map the hidden geological contours of the region. The researchers found evidence that Totten similarly melted during an earlier period of natural global warming a few million years ago — a possible dress rehearsal for what is happening today. “During the Pliocene epoch, temperatures were 2°C higher than they are right now, and CO2 levels in the atmosphere were 400 parts per million,” Siegert said.


http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2016/05/20/thumbs/p06-160520-a1.jpg
An aerial view made available by The Oceans Melting Greenland field campaign team, flying NASA’s G-III aircraft over Greenland at about 12,000m on March 26, provides a stunning perspective of the great ice sheet on Greenland.

Sea levels during the Pliocene peaked at levels more than 20m higher than today. “We are at 400 ppm right now, and if we do nothing about climate change we’re going to get 2°C more warming too,” he added. Indeed, even when pledges by 195 nations to cut greenhouse gases — submitted ahead of the landmark Paris Agreement in December — are taken into account, temperatures are still set to increase an additional 2°C, the UN has said. Other scientists not involved in the research said its findings should be a wakeup call. “Totten Glacier is a slumbering giant,” said Andy Shepherd, director of the NERC Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds in England. The “strong evidence” that the glacier has been unstable in the past, coupled with signs that it is melting now, are “a clear warning that changes might be on the horizon,” he said.

Up to now, estimates of how much Antarctica would contribute to global sea level rise before 2100 have been conservative. The latest report from the UN’s climate science panel put that number at about a dozen centimeters, all of it from a relatively small section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is itself 10 times smaller than East Antarctica. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that total sea level rise from all sources — expansion of warming water, glaciers, Greenland — would probably not top 1m, but the low figure for Antarctica has more to do with gaps in knowledge than differences of opinion.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2016/05/20/2003646713