p2pnet - rss feed: London and Tokyo under water?
OT news / p2pnet: A scenario often used as the central theme for sci-fi novels may become true, says a new American study.
London, New York, Tokyo and other major cities could be under water by 2100, predict Bette Otto-Bliesner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and paleoclimatologist Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona.
"Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree Celsius with attendant increases in glacial melting and decreases in sea ice," says Scientific American. "Experts predict that at current levels of greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide alone is at 375 parts per million - the earth may warm by as much as five degrees Celsius, matching conditions roughly 130,000 years ago," the story, quoting a report in Science.
"Now a refined climate model is predicting, among other things, sea level rises of as much as 20 feet," it says, going on:
"Such a sea level rise would permanently inundate low-lying lands like New Orleans, southern Florida, Bangladesh and the Netherlands. Already sea level rise has increased to an inch per decade, thanks to melting ice and warm water expansion, according to Overpeck. And evidence that the Arctic is exponentially warming continues to accumulate."
We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade, Overpeck says. "If we don’t do something soon, we’re committed to [13 to 20 feet] of sea level rise in the future," he warns.
Also See:
Scientific American - Climate Model Predicts Greater Melting, Submerged Cities, March 24, 2006
March 25th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
That ‘Dubya’ just may be correct on a number of assumptions, re “warming”. I was wandering around Usenet (newsgroups) yesterday, and saw what purported to be text copied-over from an article in Newsweek magazine, circa 28 April, 1975. The title (as was seen in Usenet) is:
“Freeze Warning for entire world (Global Cooling)”
————-
“The Cooling World” - by Peter Gwynne”
<quote>The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950</quote>
“So massively”. Hasn’t something along these same line(s) been mentioned re “warming”?
<quote>A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972</quote>
“of half a degree”. Where has this been seen before?
<quote>To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average</quote>
“the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average”
Anyone for Novosibirsk/St. Petersburg? No, I didn’t think so either.
<quote>Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age”</quote>
“Others”. With professional degrees in Bs, Ms, Phd (bull-s*it, more s*it, piled higher and deeper)?
<quote>Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”</quote>
FINALLY. Someone “with a brain” (?) is actually getting around to USING it.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
The full article (as found in Usenet) is available upon request. Comparing it to the original article here on p2pnet.net, it invites some *very* interesting comparisons (1/2 a degree down, 1/2 a degree up; ad imfinitum).
March 25th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
“London, New York, Tokyo and other major cities could be under water by 2100″
This is bad? =p
March 26th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Global warming and cooling go hand in hand.
Both green house gases will continue to increase along with temperatures, until eventually the heat from the sun can no longer penertrate the atmosphere. This will lead to an ice age as tempertures drop rapidly. This is a normal pattern of change for the earth, it has happend before and, it will happen again.
Now, on the subject of us expediating this global process, well, there is data either way. I’m sure we do make a small impact, but i wouldn’t say that we were artifically creating this process simply due to our existance on earth.
On a personal note, i can say with certainty that the temperture is rising. I remember when it used to snow every xmas (mid/late december) here in the uk when i was a child (i’m 26 btw).
Much of this is just common sense. You could read endless conflicting arguments, but the process i outlined above just makes sense logically. As the earth evolves these same patterns just repeat over and over.
March 26th, 2006 at 2:08 am
According to the article (Newsweek), between 1945 and 1968 the temperature dropped 1/2 of a degree. Now while I will admit the winters of 1969 & 1977 were, shall we say, rather *severe*, when I see <quote>Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree</quote>, I am given to the thought of that, perhaps, nature has corrected itself(?).
As for “common sense”, “global cooling” was seen by many, with a great deal of apparent scientific evidence behind it, as The “truth”, way-back-when (mid-1970s). Are you saying that, if you were reading the signs, back then, you would not be of the firm-belief that our world was headed for some truly major cold-weather events? Of course, using 20/20 forsight (which nobody has, I think you will agree), people would have said the global-warming was simply waiting in the proverbial wings. After all, science will tell us all (or not). One must simply wait for a small temp-change, either way, and enough of the populace to gullibly swallow one or the other theory.
I would go into my personal theory of “600-year cycles” (warm/cold & back again), but the idea would probably just be blown off.
March 26th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
Then we’ll know who was right.
This will of course mean that we may be sitting on a floating raft while saying “told you so”, but it’s the only way to end the argument.
Alternatively, we could just play it safe and quit pumping as much stuff into the air as we do currently.