Posted on 11/18/2008 6:20:22 PM PST by Coleus
New Jersey's densely populated coastline is in danger of becoming vastly altered because sea levels are rising — triggered by the world's glaciers melting at the fastest rate ever recorded, a leading glaciologist has concluded.Rising global temperatures, caused in part by greenhouse gas emissions, are precipitating the glacial melt, which will add 3 feet to the world's sea levels by 2100 if remedial action isn't taken now, said Lonnie G. Thompson, a world-renowned expert on glaciers and professor at Ohio State University. At state and federal levels, officials are working to stem the glacial melt through legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to cut America's greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 using methods including a cap and trade program in which businesses are given a pollution allowance and must buy credits from other businesses to be permitted to discharge more pollutants.
Global warming, or the rise in the world's temperature, has the potential to dramatically alter New Jersey's landscape and environment. Besides the projected sea level rise, global warming is expected to cause more deaths from heat and smog in cities, make the state more susceptible to storm surges and floods, and cause an influx of non-native animals and plants. By the end of the 21st century, Thompson predicts, the global temperature will rise by 3 degrees Celsius, triggering a glacial melt that will envelop sections of North Jersey, including Edgewater, Hoboken, Jersey City, Liberty State Park, Bayonne, the Meadowlands, Newark, Newark Liberty International Airport, Carteret and Roselle.Passaic County would not be as seriously affected by the sea level rise, but increased flooding of the Passaic River is likely.
Across the Hudson River in New York City, chunks of both lower and upper Manhattan would disappear underwater, along with portions of eastern Staten Island, southern Brooklyn and Queens, according to Thompson. The rise in sea levels would make the New Jersey coastline more susceptible to storm surges from floods and hurricanes. During most of the 20th century, sea levels rose by about 2 millimeters, Thompson said. The last time the world's temperature was 3 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today was 3 million years ago, when sea levels were between 65 and 98 feet higher, Thompson said. During the last 100 years, the world's temperature rose 0.74 degrees Celsius, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international group of government officials and scientists who are working to understand and mitigate climate change. The 20th century was the warmest in the last millennium, Thompson said.
"What we're really concerned about is where we're projected to be in a business-as-usual model, Thompson said last month at the McCormick Conference on Climate Change at Ohio State University in Columbus. "That would change the geography of our planet as we know it. Where we end up ... depends on the future energy policies of this nation and the world." Thompson has spent the past 32 years studying glaciers around the world, drilling and analyzing glacial ice cores. He used a computer model to predict how New Jersey's coastline would appear if sea levels rose. Thompson is not alone in his glacial melt contention. In a report released last year, the IPCC predicted glacial melts caused by rising temperatures were likely contributing to the rise in sea levels. By 2099, the IPCC predicted, sea levels would rise between 7 inches and 23 inches.
On Thursday, the U.N. Environmental Program reported that clouds of soot, chemicals and particles, known as atmospheric brown clouds, had blanketed parts of Asia and Africa and were contributing to the melting of glaciers as well. Global warming caused Arctic Sea ice to decline by 9 percent every year from 1979 to 2006, and then by another 24 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The glaciers have been melting so rapidly, Thompson said, within the next 30 years, there will be no glaciers left in Montana's Glacier National Park.
"In the big scheme of things," Thompson said, "the Earth is warming and the glaciers are retreating." In Greenland, glacial retreats are accelerated by summer melts that create lakes in the glaciers, Thompson said. Water seeps down into the glacier's foundation, further destabilizing the glacier. All of the world's tropical glaciers, found in mountainous countries like Peru, Tibet and Tanzania, are melting, Thompson said. "Glaciers, especially tropical glaciers, are canaries in the coal mine for our global climate system," he said.
Woo-hoo!! I’m buying some beachfront property in Parsippany!!
Just call Obama....he’ll roll back the waters, remember?
Obama can probably turn back the tides; if not, why not?
If New York and New Jersey are washed into the ocean, do they lose their Senate seats and electoral votes?
(Apologies to all NJ Freepers. :)
EXACTLY!!!!
Global warming’s as true as the Club of Rome...
Clearly, the rising tide of Global Warming puts more blue states at risk of going glug, glug, glug, so I fully support it and contribute to it as much as I can.
Don’t worry...all we have to do is give up more of our freedoms and money to the government and this “problem” will be solved.
IF this really were happening, and it isn’t, China and India alone openly plan to pump far more CO2 into the atmosphere this entire time. The idea that the US can pass legislation to have any effect is utter nonsense, world CO2 levels are rising and will rise.
IF anyone believed this they wouldn’t be trying to stop the United States, they’d be going crazy about India and China. They aren’t.
“And we want to save New Jersey why?”
As a NJ Freeper, I ask myself the same question...
Sounds like someone is looking for a government grant.
I’m pretty sure the ocean currents will wash all the dead voters from nj cemeteries towards Ct and Ma, thereby increasing their congressional and electoral counts. We will retain our senatorial seats of course, and at least 1 will be occupied by Lautenberg for at least 60 more years.
Keel haul lefties, and then hoist the pirate flag.
Ther Chicken Little fear mongers are at it again, just like before the primaries last spring.
I’m freezing my butt off in Connecticut today.
How come it’s so hot in Jersey??
Liars.
The “Club of Rome” was a bogus idea liberals believed in the 70’s - we were all suppose to be starving by the year 2000.
Some good buddy's in Palermo are having a sit down with the local pols. We are developing a plan to plug Etna and Vesuvious. They will sleep with the fish.
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