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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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It's a restful sound, waves, unless they happen to be submerging the island or coastal plain you call home. A combination of climate change and bad environmental practices like coral mining is now swamping some low-lying lands.
Take the islands off the coast of Panama. These Caribbean islands regularly find themselves inundated with seawater for days—and some indigenous inhabitants have begun to move to hillsides on the mainland.
New research from the National Center for Atmospheric Research suggests that climate change is already causing even greater sea level rise along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java—coastlines inhabited by hundreds of millions of people. The same climate change is also responsible for falling sea levels around the Seychelles and a potential weakening of the monsoons.
Satellite images and historical photos in other research suggest that some Pacific islands have proven resilient to sea level rise of roughly 17 centimeters over the last century, largely thanks to corals continuing to provide a steady supply of island-building material.
But rising sea levels thanks to global warming is a problem we better be prepared for.
—David Biello
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34 Comments
Add CommentHow can global warming be responsible for sea levels both rising and falling?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe also know that there are areas in the world where ancient ruins of cities are completely submerged under many feet of water and have been for thousands of years by rising seas.
Why not report on that and the causes? For example there are many such ruins off the current coasts of Greece. Could it be that such "data" is hard to explain with the "man-made" global warming approach?
Water finds its own level - how can you have greater sea level rise in some places only - unless it is for other factors that you dont mention - talk sense man!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStock - that is true for your basement or even a lake. Oceans are a bit more complicated. Wtih temperature gradients, large scale flows, gravitational changes, land mass interactions, atmospheric effects, lunar effects, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't panic - water will not start flowing up anytime soon ;-)
Also, consider water depth as well. An expanding water volume to due temperature increase will have greater effect in deep ocean areas that in shallow water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh.. Once again the editorial board lets a man-made global warming disciple rant ND Rave.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIslands disappear all the time and it never has anything to do with rising or falling seas. As the plates of the earth move, they pass over major lava vents and these create islands when located in the ocean. Right on top of the vents and you've got the biggest islands. The farther from the vent, the smaller the islands become because of erosion over time. Hawaiin islands were made and currently are being made exactly the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe science behind man-made global warming has been shattered as almost complete BS. Just like everything else within the Corporatocracy leadership (congress, white house), the data is being fixed to support a profit policy. But the mainstream media and the rest of the corporations won't tell you this because they intend to try to usher in a New World Order with this propoganda, keep us under control and continue profiting off our labor and resources.
Some have commented that sea levels have risen and fallen in the past, so all is fine. This is like saying that as forest fires occur through natural effects, we can be as careless as we like regarding campfires in the forest during dry season.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMan made global warming = Cap and trade/NWO global economy scam.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccepting global warming fraud is accepting serfdom.
Wow, the nutters on this article are worse than on the pure global climate change articles. NWO conspiracy? You guys are retarded. Think about it: it is a proven fact that CO2 traps infrared radiation, this has been known for 151 years. Therefore, logically, adding more of the stuff that traps heat to the atmosphere, and we've raised CO2 levels by around 40% since 1800, should cause the temperature to rise. Regarding the actual point of this article: yes, islands do disappear due to erosion, but not nearly as fast as they do when ocean levels rise. There are Pacific islands that are only a few feet above sea level at their highest points, and they are disappearing. I may be wrong about this, but I think I heard about an entire island nation that has had to evacuate because they've been inundated by the ocean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@RDH: Of course there are local fluctuations in sea level, what is being discussed here is that overall, the average sea level on Earth is rising. Just because the average goes up doesn't mean there aren't pockets of decline (just as with temperature rise). Here's an analogy: in the last several years, gas prices have generally risen, but there have still been times when they dropped during that interval, so using denier logic, those occasional declines in gas price prove that gas prices are not rising, and there is no need to worry about ridiculous gas prices in the future.
MrMediocre - I suggest you look a little closer before relying too heavily on the reason of governments. I recall some rumor that AGW politics started because GB PM Thacher didn't want to be dependent on striking coal miners or Arab oil. Choosing nuclear, she funded environmental research to justify that decision. That's one story, anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot that I don't think that the Earth is warming, but governments are not a reliable source of independent reason, since they most often act in their own interests. I'm a Viet Nam veteran...
I notice a very large number of comments on any website trying to disclaim the greenhouse effect and the concurrent change of climate. I notice that there is none of this on the European websites. Does this mean that North American science is still years behind the European and Asian scientific community? or is there actually some other reason for the disproportionate amount of people ridiculing the facts with inaccurate comments that the scientific community stopped debating some time ago?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that local sea level depth is determined by many geologic conditions that are independent of global warming. If a global sea level could be reliably determined, it would vary primarily due to the exchange of mass between polar ice and oceanic water. The best predicter of a global sea level should be the average amount of polar ice, correct? As I understand that is one of the areas of dispute among actual climate scientists...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, since I agree that the Earth's average temperature is increasing I would expect that sea levels will generally rise. I don't think these changes can be reliably predicted.
For the same reason that weather patterns are changing world-wide. Record heat waves in America and Europe, wetlands getting less water, where as other places are getting more water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust because you don't understand it does not make it both true and possible.
Why would you ask such dumb question on this site, of all sites?
jtdwyer: Current sea level rise is largely the result of the reduced volume of floating sea ice with a bit of glacial recession dropped in. Floating ice however is about 90% water displacing with only about 10% of the volume contributing to sea level rise. Which may speak more to the amount of sea ice lost than one might think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real threat will come from ice cap melting. All of that ice will add to sea level increases. Some indications are that the processes are already underway to facilitate the contributions of ice cap water to average global sea level. One process is that ice shelves in Antarctica serve as a dams for the ice caps and reduce the rate at which they move into the ocean and melt. A few recent calvings of phenomenally large shelf ice could let the ice caps flow at a greater rate into the oceans. The data is not in on this yet.
Another process, most notably on the Greenland ice cap, is surface ice melts forming a lake that finds it's way down through fissures, oftentimes draining in a matter of hours a few hectare/meters of water, to the base rock, thus lubicating the cap from the normal friction holding it in place, while the water flows out to the ocean. A "doubled whammy" of sorts. This too is still being studied and no definite answers can predict the future yet.
And, yes, numerous factors can result in lower local sea level while overall sea level is increasing. The oceans are incredibly dynamic and existing models are boiling the processors out of supercomputers trying to explain the available data much less attempt to model the results we really need to prepare for what may happen if current trends continue. I would suggest you tell your grandkids to get a boat or more to higher elevation.
Your woeful ignorance, if shared by too many, will cause the extinction of man on earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am a long way from being a scientist, but how does happen that sea levels are rising off Panama, and falling in the Seychelles? Are you really telling me a rising tide doesn’t raise all boats?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGoogle Newtok, AK. The first "American" community to be relocated due rising waters. I lived there in '89. The village per-dates, by a few centuries, the Russians arrived.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally I would prefer that the debate shift from the upper atmosphere and instead focus down here - at sea level.
The quality, and safety, of the air, water and soil. But the problem you see is that doing so would expose the profiteers. So, my opinion, the Barons initiated and supported the initial controvers1y by slipping "controversial science" into the equation.
Anything to drag out, for as long as possible, any definitive actions, sanctions and regulations make them appear ethical again. Similar to the manufacturers that deal with design safety flaw in their products that chose to deal individually and avoid exposure, i.e. Toyota's recalls. They still made profit aside from the costs of resolving the problem and settling.
As a culture we really need to realize that manifest destiny no longer applies. As a culture we've become both self centered and every more selfish. Refusing reality for sense of entitlement.
My opinon.
Wow, the warming deniers remind of me of religious fanatics. Science, reason, knowledge to the contrary do not matter. Some guy with a gold microphone told them it darn tootin' ain't real, so yihaa, global warming is false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistichead - I did completely overlook the displacing effect of floating ice, which could be highly significant and difficult to evaluate. Surprisingly, the spatial displacement of ice is generally less than 10% more than water. Of course ice directly supported by the Earth's surface generally displaces no oceanic water, so any that is melted or dropped into the ocean is a entirely a net increase in ocean volume.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso of interest, oceans are estimated to contain 97% of the Earth's surface water while glaciers and polar ice caps contain only 2.4%. However, the impact to land surface area loss of adding to ocean water volumes is highly dependent on surface topography. Moreover, major loss of surface ice such as the Greenland or polar ice caps could produce significant changes to the elevation of certain crustal plates, perhaps even changing the shape of the entire Earth and ocean levels everywhere.
Other considerations of melting or submersing ice is the reduction of thermal reflectivity, which would further increase surface as well as atmospheric temperatures.
Since surface topology is such a critical factor in determining sea level increases, extremely complex topographical models are necessary to provide any reasonably useful estimation of the impact of ocean volume increases, as you indicated.
Perhaps the most reliable solution for the grandkids is an Ark. Any ship may have to deal with the loss of usable port facilities and resupply issues. Thanks for the help.
Sea levels rising would be universal and it is simply not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm in Maine and there is none. none . none . . . . . . ! Think about that!
Thank someone people are finally noticing that the mainstrean "news" explanations for the overwhelming amount of earth changes do NOT make sense! (By the way, you are NOT hearing or learning about the vast majority of what is going on worldwide: increased earthquakes, extreme and abnormal weather, increased volcanic erruptions, sinkholes, deluge AND drought, moon, sun and constellations not where they are supposed to be, fireballs, etc. Why? Because the power elite do NOT want YOU to find out why.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNotice that ALL of the "climate change" (remember when it was called "global warming?) models did NOT predict sealevels rising this fast. How can a few degrees SURFACE temperature increase melt glaciers, parts of Antartica and raise sea levels this fast? They CANNOT! It is absurd.
The real reason for EVERYHING (including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan) is due to one thing: Planet X!
You can see Planet in SOHO, NASA and JPL photographs of the sun. Planet X also made an appearance during the recent solar eclipse, but this is ALSO being covered up!
Why, why, why?
Because the power elite KNOW that a catastrophic pole shift will be the end result, and they have ZERO plans to help YOU (go to work, pay your taxes) and have spent many billions of taxpayer money preparing their OWN bunkers and aboveground estates. That is why.
Why do those claiming to be concerned about our climate to the point of trying to manage it categorically deny/ignore the role of the cyclical fluctations of the Sun (I know, to you it sounds too "spacey") and our magnetosphere ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnswer: It doesn't help pass legislation that helps to control and consolidate their power. It was BP along with Ken Lay and Al Gore who schemed up the carbon trading market.
Maybe you'll snap out of trusting Gore when you realize Michael Mann recently said Gore took the "hockey stick" graph of his and misused it.... AND that Gore tried to give us Lieberman.
Think for a moment.
It is hard to admit you were fooled, especially since you (as was I) identified with being pro-environment. I've since learned that it's the toxins, stupid.
Why don't we hear a loud coalition against GMO, Corexit, and depleted uranium?
Four self-references, one article from the USA Today, and one press release from an organization with significant profit potential from the whole Global Warming scam. Had David remembered to include Wikipedia as his final source he'd have everything needed for a junior high school essay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly, he'd still have nothing resembling a scientific or even honest article. Boy, how SciAm has fallen.
Politics vs. science -- the blowhard talking heads have obviously had an effect on the climate-change-deniers that spout complete and utter rubbish here. Hopefully they live on flood-plains so that they may experience the results up close and personal! Fifty years ago, I was taught in European schools about what we then called the "greenhouse effect" caused by human activity. The schools here have obviously failed the people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBodicca, I’m afraid we can’t blame this on the schools. I wish it were that simple. People believe what they choose to believe, and no amount of education will reach them. I’m not championing our public schools, nor do I think they can all be painted with the same brush. I have people in my own family who scoff at the thought of any human hand in polluting the earth and the resulting climactic change. They are not stupid; they just refuse to see the Earth in reality. They have traits in common, but I can’t say being right-winged and religious are causative, nor can I say they aren’t. It is the age old adage brought to life; “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Or perhaps, “proclaiming themselves wise they became fools.” Romans 1:22
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi wonder how much of rising sea level can be explained by simple erosion - not just of the islands in question but of all the rest of the earth's land mass, which is slowly melted into the sea by inland runoff (via rivers) and coastal erosion. I live on a sandy bluff on an Atlantic bay and I lose 6 inches a year of bluff, which ends up down in the bay. This happens all over the world to a greater or less3er extent. Take a saucer filled with water and then place a couple of stones into it - you would not be surprised to see the water level rise. Maybe the f9lks calculating sea level rise take this factor into account, but i've never seen it mentioned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how much higher the oceans' level will be from all that oil spilling into it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere in Fla, which geo stable, islands, coastal areas are disappearing and the Everglades is shrinking due to sea level rise. I've watch them for 50 yrs and it's clear visible, losing probably 200' average around the state on island. Places where land use to be with old wells sticking up now 300' offshore, ect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLikely to be the hottest yr on record this yr.
Interesting the deniers never mention we need to cut fossil fuel use for national and economic security reasons or will go broke, die faster from coal pollution and be in permanent oil wars if we don't.
I live with little energy use very well, better than most and I save $100's/month too. My Harley size EV MC trike only costs $2/week to run for electricity, batteries and tag for instance. How much do you spend. My 2 seat EV sportswagon EV only costs $5/wk for the same. Both cost less if mass produced that similar ICE cars, MC's.
Having a paid for an eff home my electric bill including all heating, cooling, cooking, transportation is only $23-45/month. How much is yours?
So not only is barely using fossil fuels beating GW but saving large amounts of cash.
You can't be serious. Planet X? Bulls**t. If there were any "Planet X" close enough to have any effect on the Earth it would've been naked-eye visible for several years, amateur astronomers all over the world would've tracked it, it would've been impossible to hide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoosik says, "The quality, and safety, of the air, water and soil. But the problem you see is that doing so would expose the profiteers. So, my opinion, the Barons initiated and supported the initial controvers1y by slipping "controversial science" into the equation."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this****************
Yep, without a doubt, the fossil fuel industry has run a great mis-information and dis-information campaign, "slipping controversial science into the equation," as well as using as many economists as possible -- not paleoclimatologists or even scientists -- to convince those easily swayed that making those responsible for their endless greenhouse gas emissions and a steadily warming planet, should not have to bear any costs since they will just pass them on to consumers.
This should all be about real science and not economics!
"Sea levels rising would be universal and it is simply not."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this****************
Actually, you might be a "science lover," but you actually don't know the science involved with sea levels NOT being universal:
Sea levels rising in parts of Indian Ocean, according to new study -- July 13, 2010
Greenhouse gases are playing a role in changes, say scientists
Newly detected rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean, including the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, appear to be at least partly a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases, says a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The study, which combined sea surface measurements going back to the 1960s and satellite observations, indicates anthropogenic climate warming likely is amplifying regional sea rise changes in parts of the Indian Ocean, threatening inhabitants of some coastal areas and islands, said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Weiqing Han, lead study author.
"Our results from this study imply that if future anthropogenic warming effects in the Indo-Pacific warm pool dominate natural variability, mid-ocean islands such as the Mascarenhas Archipelago, coasts of Indonesia, Sumatra and the north Indian Ocean may experience significantly more sea level rise than the global average," said Han of CU-Boulder's atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.
While a number of areas in the Indian Ocean region are showing sea level rise, the study also indicated the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coastline show the largest sea level drop. Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform, and sea rise in some areas correlate with sea level fall in other areas, said NCAR's Meehl.
A paper on the subject was published in this week's issue of Nature Geoscience. Co-authors included Balaji Rajagopalan, Xiao-Wei Quan, Jih-wang Wang and Laurie Trenary of CU-Boulder, Gerald Meehl, John Fasullo, Aixue Hu, William Large and Stephen Yeager of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Jialin Lin of Ohio State University, and Alan Walcraft and Toshiaki Shinoda of the Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/uoca-slr071310.php
As you watch the movies from esp. Greenland, you can see
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishow it melting down in streams, going down in pits to oil the
bottom reg to speed up the glaciers moving into the sea. But that is not the only reasons. The air and water temperatures are rising, not straight, but accelerating. All this put together will get the astonishing speed-up effect. Glaciers melting and going down in the seas. But all of this are well known.
The ALBEDO effect is, however, a real accelerator to all this.
It is reported by NASA, that Albedo effect on ice-melting speed up the melting down by 50%!!!! Gosh! And anybody can imagine how the black soot and all dirty and poisonous air and fallouts, from million years back until the last hundreds of years of really bad dust. All added on the black surface you
can see and down into the thick ice. When all melting down,
the blackness on the surface will grow. The melting down accelerating faster and faster as the black soot became as an
old frying pan. Than the speed of melting and the release of all fallouts coming loose. Ending up in our lap. Than its going
very fast!! A vertical curve of ice-melting and an accelerating,
and vertical curve of the graph for, WATER-LEVEL-RISING! The time-axis could be close to zero! WITHIN "X" YEARS!
Anybody can see that the Greenland ice-sheet melting down.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut how fast? The ice-surface became more dirty at the time.
The water flows into the ground and oiling the glaciers to run faster out into the sea. The temperatures of the air and the sea, rising, melting the ice and speeding up the glaciers move.
As accelerator, the ALBEDO-effect makes it running faster
and faster. The Black soot and all fallouts from millions of
years, including all poisonous and dangerous stuff,
accumulate on the ice-surface. The surface became, A Black
frying-pan. The speed of melting, accelerate, as the blackness
add to the speed-up. The CURVE ON A GRAPH write a close
to "vertical line". In No Time at all we are sitting with millions of years of poisonous dust in our laps. And the ICE disappearing under your feet and at your eyes, faster and faster, down to the ground! In No Time At All! IT'S REAL!
STOP ALL COAL-FIRES, NOW, PLEASE!
ALL STOKERS, GO HOME, IN THIS VERY MOMENT!
NOTHING ELSE, MATTER MORE!
LEAVE IT AT THAT!
RETIRE!
regards,
fighter
RDH,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreece, OK! Abt 20 000 years ago, Gibraltar sound was open wide, by the sea level rising after the ice-age. At that time a
wide area of a large sink, known for us today as, The Great "Mediterranean Sea".
A wonderful, fertile more or less closed area, the very start of everything you can imagine and have read about in the Bible.
YES THATS TRUTH. REALITY & FACT! "The Wonderland".
The absolutely catastrophic, exterminating, terrifying and deadley disaster, also called, in "THE BIBLE", "THE FLOOD".
The cities the people, animals, forrests, the great buildings?
"GONE"!
In those days there was a large lake in the middle, and the
whole area was everything you can imagine as "PARADISE"!
NOHA AND THE ARCH, and all the people, and "CHRIST"!
"JESUS" and "JEHOVA" and "GOD", "MARIA"! All was there!
"The Place"!
You can dive, into the, "PARADISE", do it.
I do not have to write anything, read it in "The Bible"!
But it was as a result of, "GLOBAL NATURAL WARMING".
The ICE-AGE was over, and the ICE WAS MELTING DOWN!
And the WATER LEVEL OF THE OCEANS took "PARADISE".
ALL OF THAT COMING OVER US AGAIN BUT WORSE & EVIL.
END ALL COAL FIRES!
regards
fighter