Scientists warn U.S. east coast over accelerated sea level rise
By Damian Carrington, www.guardian.co.uk
24 June 2012 Sea level rise is accelerating three to four times faster along the densely populated east coast of the US than other US coasts, scientists have discovered. The zone, dubbed a “hotspot” by the researchers, means the ocean from Boston to New York to North Carolina is set to experience a rise up a third greater than that seen globally. Asbury Sallenger, at the US geological survey at St Petersburg, Florida, who led the new study, said: “That makes storm surges that much higher and the reach of the waves that crash onto the coast that much higher. In terms of people and communities preparing for these things, there are extreme regional variations and we need to keep that in mind. We can’t view sea level rise as uniform, like filling up a bath tub. Some places will rise quicker than others and the whole urban corridor of north-east US is one of these places.” The hotspot had been predicted by computer modelling, but Sallenger said: “Our paper is the first to focus on using real data to show [the acceleration] is happening now and that we can detect it now.” The rapid acceleration, not seen before on the Pacific of Gulf coasts of the US, may be the result of the slowing of the vast currents flowing in the Altantic, said Sallenger. These currents are driven by cold dense water sinking in the Arctic, but the warming of the oceans and the flood of less dense freshwater into the Arctic from Greenland’s melting glaciers means the water sinks less quickly. That means a “slope” from the fastest-moving water in the mid-Atlantic down to the US east coast relaxes, pushing up sea level on the coast. “Coastal communities have less time to adapt if sea levels rise faster,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute Germany, who published a separate study in the same journal, Nature Climate Change, on Sunday. Rahmstorf’s team showed that even relatively mild climate change, limited to 2C, would cause global sea level to rise between 1.5 and 4 metres by the year 2300. If nations acted to cutting carbon emissions so the temperature rise was only 1.5C, the sea level rise would be halved, the researchers found. The impacts of the rising seas are potentially devastating, said the scientists. “As an example, 1 metre of sea level rise could raise the frequency of severe flooding for New York City from once per century to once every three years,” said Rahmstorf, adding that low lying countries like Bangladesh are likely to be severely affected. His colleague Michiel Schaeffer, at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said: “Sea level rise is a hard to quantify, yet a critical risk of climate change. Due to the long time it takes for the world’s ice and water masses to react to global warming, our emissions today determine sea levels for centuries to come.” […]
Scientists warn US east coast over accelerated sea level rise
There is simply no way that any of this can be true.
North Carolina legislatures (experts in climate science and sea level rise) have assured the people of North Carolina that there are no effects of climate change, particularly sea level rise occurring without their approval.
Therefore, it cannot possibly be happening and this report is inaccurate and full of errors and inconsistencies.
Des — you do a great job keeping the readership posted on the effects, measurements, assessments, analysis and science regarding the planet, including climate change, but this time, you've REALLY dropped the ball.
I'm going to side with the climate experts in the North Carolina Legislature on this one. It's just not happening, I don't care what all these other so-called 'experts' with advanced degrees in climate science and years of alleged experience are claiming, it simply can't be true.