Posted on 02/17/2002 9:25:18 AM PST by Clara Lou
BOSTON – Melting glaciers could cause global sea level to rise between 7 and 11 inches in this century, more than twice what was previously predicted, scientists said Saturday.
That melting could combine with other factors to bring total sea level rise to between 1 and 2 feet.
The rise may sound small, but "you could lose 100 feet of prime real estate along shores," said Mark Meier, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado. In low-lying areas such as estuaries, a 1-foot rise in sea level could push the shoreline 1,000 feet inland, Dr. Meier reported in Boston at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses the scientific consensus on the effects of global warming, had underestimated factors such as how rapidly some big Alaskan glaciers are melting, he said.
Another group of climate experts, discussing whether the El Niño climate phenomenon would return this winter, said that new observations of the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean suggest conditions are ripe for an El Niño to begin there.
"The preconditions are all set for an El Niño to unfold," said Stephen Zebiak, a climate forecaster at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction in Palisades, N.Y.
But he said no computer models predict an El Niño like that which wreaked havoc worldwide in the winter of 1997-98.
Oceanographers will be scrutinizing the Pacific this spring to see whether more warm water rises to its surface, which could trigger a full-fledged El Niño. Within the next three to six months, scientists should have a much better idea whether an El Niño might occur and how severe it might be.
At this time in early 1997, when the last El Niño appeared, the eastern Pacific was already far warmer and signaling a stronger El Niño event than it is this year, said climate expert Antonio Busalacchi of the University of Maryland.
Some researchers have proposed that global warming might have caused El Niño to appear more frequently in the last few decades.
An El Niño's chief effect on humanity is to change rainfall patterns, causing flooding in some parts of the world and drought in others.
Not in dispute is the fact that warmer global temperatures are causing glaciers to melt at the fastest rate in 5,000 years, Dr. Meier said.
He and his colleagues have chronicled the loss of glaciers and ice caps outside Greenland and Antarctica. Over the last 40 years, melting of this ice has contributed to an observed sea level rise. And the contribution of glaciers is increasing, Dr. Meier said.
Dr. Meier acknowledged that his study is "data-poor," because glacier records aren't kept the same way worldwide. But his results fit into a larger, scientifically accepted picture of the world's ice wasting away at an ever-faster rate.
New data show that the big Alaskan and Canadian glaciers are melting more rapidly than thought. In some cases, they are thinning by 2 to 3 feet every year, Dr. Meier said. The glaciers' enormous sizes had obscured how much ice was being lost.
In addition, Dr. Meier's team found that small glaciers around Antarctica and Greenland appear on the verge of melting. And glaciers appear to be more sensitive to changes in temperature and snowfall than previously believed.
The international climate panel's report had proposed that melting glaciers would contribute 2 to 4 inches to sea-level rise during this century – a long way from Dr. Meier's 7 to 11 inches.
I seem to remember reading an article in the not-too-distant past that dealt with ocean depth and global warming (the study was carried out by REAL scientists, not the frauds involved in climatology). Basically, it was found that ocean depth hadn't increased at all, and that it may have instead gone down very slightly. So much for the global warming kook theories that the media loves to bandy about.
I'll try to find the article, although I'm pretty sure I found it at the Junk Science web site.
I think it was Sci Fi writer Charles Sheffield who wrote this New York Times front page headline:
"World to End Tomorrow; Women, Minorities Hardest Hit"
Being a REAL scientist, I agree with your description as stated above.
Make a bet with an envoironmental agitator.Wait till the ice melts and water level falls. Collect bet.
As Winston Churchill said "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened."
Nothing like making your arguement with an unsubstanciated piece of propaganda like this. This is theory and most likely a drug induced bit of enviro-crapola at that.
Global warming, on the other hand, is still an unsubstantiated theory
With a line like this, how can I take the rest of Alexandra's writing seriously? Duh, warm water is always on the surface, it doesn't rise from below. Anybody who pays attention to real weather news knows that an El Nino condition is caused by strong easterly winds blowing warm water across the equatorial Pacific towards the Americas.
I wonder what a partial El Nino is like?
Antarctica Cooling Despite Supposed Global Warming
Antartica is storing more water!
To find all articles tagged or indexed using Global Warming Hoax
Click here: Global Warming Hoax
Ah, but what did they say Sunday? These predictions have a way of changing.
I hate to dispute, but this "fact" is the subject of fierce debate. To flippently say it is not in dispute is a distortion (ie: my cat and I never argue about this), or an outright lie.
Further, what about the reports a few weeks ago that the western Antartic ice sheet was getting thicker (adding ice, therefore taking up existing liquid water), and that Antarctica is getting colder.
Whatever the real truth may be, it is an obvious conclusion that changing public policy (laws, regulations, Kyoto, etc) based on such contradictory and contentious theories is assinine at best and criminally negligent at worst.
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