Ask climate scientists how fast the world’s oceans are creeping upward, and many will say 3.2 millimeters per year—a figure enshrined in the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, from 2014. But the number, based on satellite measurements taken since the early 1990s, is a long-term average. In fact, the global rate varied so much over that period that it was hard to say whether it was holding steady or accelerating.
It was accelerating, big time. Faster melting of Greenland’s ice has pushed the rate to 4.8 millimeters per year, according to a 10-year average compiled for Science by Benjamin Hamlington, an ocean scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and head of the agency’s sea level change team.
“The [Greenland] mass loss has clearly kicked into higher gear,” agrees Felix Landerer, a JPL sea level scientist. With the help of new data, new models of vertical land motion, and—this month—a new radar satellite, oceanographers are sharpening their picture of how fast, and where, the seas are gobbling up the land.
jedrider wrote:Not sure if this is due to sea level rise or just human hubris to build just anywhere they please,
but the conclusion to withdraw and retreat is sound:
Along the crumbling Sonoma coast, an ambitious project paves the way for ‘managed retreat’
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-11-27/gleason-beach-managed-retreat
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The wind and tide began to seriously erode the west side of the island, where most of the houses were located, in 1914. This forced the inhabitants to move to the mainland. Many disassembled their houses and other structures and took them to the mainland, predominantly Crisfield. Attempts to protect the island by building stone walls were unsuccessful. The last family left the island in 1918 when a tropical storm damaged the island's church. A few of the former residents continued living on the island during the fishing season until 1922 when the church was moved to Fairmount, Maryland.[3]
According to several state reports including one from 2018, climate scientists expect that—relative to the year 2000—sea levels could rise at least 6 inches and as much as 12 inches in the Bay Area by 2030.
See State of California 2018 Sea-Level Rise report here.
Based on their new scenarios, global sea level is very likely to rise at least 12 inches (0.3 meters) above 2000 levels by 2100 even on a low-emissions pathway.
Newfie wrote:A bit of trivia about historic erosion in the Chesapeake Bay.
At one point Holland Island was home to 360 people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_IslandThe wind and tide began to seriously erode the west side of the island, where most of the houses were located, in 1914. This forced the inhabitants to move to the mainland. Many disassembled their houses and other structures and took them to the mainland, predominantly Crisfield. Attempts to protect the island by building stone walls were unsuccessful. The last family left the island in 1918 when a tropical storm damaged the island's church. A few of the former residents continued living on the island during the fishing season until 1922 when the church was moved to Fairmount, Maryland.[3]
dissident wrote:the nightmare coming our way in the coming decades and centuries.
mousepad wrote:I fail to understand the implication of all this. For example rising sea levels are threatening some island town in alaska. That's certainly tragic for the few 100 people affected, but also not the end of the world.
Plantagenet wrote:
Surely you can understand the implications of coastal areas being submerged by rising sea level???....... If not, then please let me know and I will explain further.
Cheers!
dissident wrote:the nightmare coming our way in the coming decades and centuries.
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