The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

It's only 10 inches in 100 years, then why is everyone freaking out over this.

It isn't nearly that simple. In fact, to all of you arguing back and forth in this thread: none of this is as simple as either side makes it out to be. We talk in absolutes when arguing, but this issue is not conducive to absolutes because the future is a) quite complex because it depends on a variety of factors, some of which we probably haven't even considered, and b) impossible to predict with a high degree of accuracy because of a).

So, for the question in...question, what will sea levels do over the coming century? The IPCC and NASA have materials available addressing this. Notice all the caveats--"high degree of confidence," "medium degree of confidence," "likely ranges," "median projection," etc.

If it was possible to say, "Sea level rise will be 10 inches between now and 2100," or "Sea level rise will be 10 meters between now and 2100," in either case we would be much better equipped to address it just by knowing, absolutely, what will happen. But that is impossible.

[niky]

The water doesn't rise uniformly, because the globe is not uniform, and northern lands uncovered by glaciers tend to rise, shifting more of that water level rise to the tropics.

I've visited a town that lost its beachfront tourist economy over the past thirty years to erosion and sea level rise. Breakwaters once dozens of feet from the water now right on the water, except at very low tide, where a foot or two of beach peeks out. Can't move the beachfront back, as the town has already been built up around it.

Then you have towns that sink as groundwater is pumped out for use by their citizens, which compounds the problem... and towns that are in areas where the sea is already naturally higher, and where sea level rise is compounded by high temperatures... hell... you don't have to be under sea level to be affected by sea level rise if the change in sea level and weather patterns creates storm surges big enough to put the town underwater every few years.

This is the problem facing coastal towns around the world. Bully for you if you have high ground to move to. To bad if there's none. Given how many coastal towns and cities are built, actually moving those populations will be a gargantuan task.

-

Also, idiots will be idiots. What the sheep think on either side of the divide doesn't change what's actually happening due to climate change.

[NeilBlanchard]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Sounds like a lot of work to delay the inevitable.

I avoid tall building because they are in the big cities. I can't stand big cities.
I would take being mortar fire in Afghanistan than be in nyc.

What about living in a world with smokestacks and exhaust pipes? Because, those things kill millions every year.

[freebeard]

Were I to live in the Cascadia Tsunami zone, I'd pick Garibaldi Oregon.


https://www.topoquest.com/place-detail.php?id=1132380

Highway 101 wraps around the base of Green Hill and the summit is 426 feet above mean sea level.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

What about living in a world with smokestacks and exhaust pipes? Because, those things kill millions every year.

Try living with out them.
Unless you live on an off grid ranch/farm you cant.

[freebeard]

This is the kind of thinking we need:

reddit.com/r/Futurology:The $3 Billion Plan to Turn Hoover Dam Into a Giant Battery

Hoover Dam helped transform the American West... Now it is the focus of a distinctly 21st-century challenge: turning the dam into a vast reservoir of excess electricity, fed by the solar farms and wind turbines that represent the power sources of the future.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, an original operator of the dam when it was erected in the 1930s, wants to equip it with a $3 billion pipeline and a pump station powered by solar and wind energy.

And here's why:

www.reddit.com/r/Futurology:Global warming accelerates at triple the past rate: IPCC. By 2040, Earth's temperature will be 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.


But wait, from the comments:

Translation: In 2016, somebody said "Hey, what would happen IF this thing happened?" To which IPCC responded, "yeah sure...we can do a study on that scenario IF it were to happen. Expect it in 2018."

Nowhere does it say anything about the likelihood of that outcome, and if you look at IPCC's most recent assessment report, there's very little reason to think it's likely at all. Even scenarios that do involve 1.5 or more degrees typically involve timeframes closer to 2081-2100, SOURCE: IPCC 5th assessment report, table 2.1, page 60.

Here is the outline for the report being discussed by the article: http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session4...tline_sr15.pdf

They make it very clear that this is a report on a specific requested scenario, and not necessariliy a thing they think will happen

"Things might be getting a little bit better, but it's kind of hard to know for sure and it could really go either way still, but yeah...it kind of looks like there's been some improvement, we think." That doesn't make a very good news article. But when you have years of that going on, it adds up.

That IPCC report I linked earlier was from 2014. China's 3-year decline was years ago. The UK actually peaked decades ago. Even US emissions peak was over ten years ago. Yet have you heard about any of that?

Check my sources. Do you own google searches. Have you only been hearing rhetoric about Trump dooming us to fiery doom? Nonsense. US emissions peaked years before even Obama was in office.

[sources]

Every source agrees on this, and it's been this way for ages, but you don't hear about things like this because "things are becoming marginally better, very slowly" doesn't get you to click on links or watch news reports. But every time somebody decides to run a worst case "what if" scenario through their models, journalists flock to it, and that's all that you see.

[oil pan 4]

That's been the narrative forever:
We have to make drastic impossible changes by yesterday or we all die in the very near future.

[Xist]

"We're already dead, we just don't know it yet."

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Yeah, I'm with you. Mortar fire sounds exhilarating, while NYC traffic is a nightmare.

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

What about living in a world with smokestacks and exhaust pipes? Because, those things kill millions every year.

Smokestacks and American motorists are much more effective at dealing death than the local gunners overseas are.

Hearing mortars and rockets never aroused much more in me than amused curiosity- amusement at watching people panic and wondering what was actually going to get hit. Rush hour traffic and industrial pollution, now that stuff is dangerous.

[oil pan 4]

That was Obama administration thinking.
Don't worry about the terrorists, worry about pollution and sea level rise. Even though the air and water are cleaner then they have been in decades.
Luckily the grown-ups are back I charge.