Quick tip: if you live somewhere that's a meter or less above sea level, you should probably move inland soon. This may well also be the case if you live somewhere that's three meters or less above sea level. And there's even a chance this may be the case if you live somewhere that's five meters or less above sea level. In short, head for the hills.
That's the hard-to-avoid conclusion when looking at the speed at which the glacial ice of Greenland and Antarctica is melting. Recent studies indicate that Greenland's ice cap is turning to water at a rate more than double what geologists had predicted. And, as Stuart Staniford's troubling and fascinating Living in the Eemian entry at The Oil Drum describes, the last time the planet had average temperatures around what's predicted for later this century, sea levels were 25' higher than at present.
We've pointed to Stuart's work before, and this piece is definitely worth checking out. Stuart does an excellent job of translating sometimes dense scientific literature into broadly-comprehensible material, and the focus of this post -- a comparison between the last interglacial warm period and the present, and the implications for sea level -- will likely be an increasingly-important subject of discussion in the years to come.
Comments (4)
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Posted by the singularity | February 24, 2006 1:14 PM
Posted on February 24, 2006 13:14
Please check out the Union of concerned Scientists position on the Bush Administration's attitude toward objectivity. The President's recent statements about the number of pounds of gasses was deliberately altered downward in a major way. The point is that we must be able to control output, stop output, or even increase output. Desertification, agriculture, planketers, and heat sinks have such huge effects.
Posted by Bob C | February 24, 2006 7:04 PM
Posted on February 24, 2006 19:04
Hmmm, I live several meters below sealevel. Might as well get me a boat to live on...
Posted by Rikkert | February 27, 2006 7:33 AM
Posted on February 27, 2006 07:33
Jamais,
I wonder what the expansion of water is per degree celsius?
My entry in the 2006 Taiwan Design Competition is along the lines of your cell-phone post. We shall see how it does...
Posted by Nicholas Paredes | February 27, 2006 3:20 PM
Posted on February 27, 2006 15:20