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Sea level rises will continue...
I have a feeling that CO2 is misunderstood here. Here goes as simply as possible...
As CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere (and they have been), long wave radiation (heat) is more efficiently kept from radiating out into space at night. CO2 acts like an insulating blanket that doesn't allow the same amount of energy out of the earth's atmosphere at night compared to the amount it receives from the sun each day. Even if the sun cycled into a period of least output, a certain level of CO2 if high enough, would still disallow the planet to balance heating and cooling. There are other feedback features that make our climate change problems worse.
Daytime temperatures overall in the past 100 years or so have not risen that much world wide, now measured around 1.4 degrees F on average, but the warming trend is accelerating. If you look closely at weather data, you'll find that nighttime lows have been more impacted. Nighttime lows have warmed more on average than daytime highs.
Water covers over 2/3rds of our planet's surface and gains/releases heat at much slower rates than land areas. Luckily, large bodies of water act as global temperature moderating units. Unfortunately, the oceans are also warming. Not as much or as fast as the atmosphere, but warming none the less. Warming water expands, causing some sea level rise.
The overall warming has also caused land and sea ice to melt off at increasing rates. Melting land based ice (glaciers) adds to sea level rise. Most glaciers around the world have been shrinking. Weather pattern changes have allowed a very few glaciers to expand at certain mountain elevations, but even these are losing volume at lower elevations. Sea level rise will eventually pose increasing problems for most low lying coastal areas. Any storm surge will be exacerbated by sea level rise, regardless of tides.
Sea level rise is not a theory. It's not spiritual. It's not political. It's not magical. But it is measurable and it is a fact. So even if storms don't get any more powerful, storm surge spillover will become a more frequent threat to vulnerable coastal communities. Highly populated low lying coastal areas may want to look at what the Netherlands have done to keep the frequently stormy North Sea out of their lands.
I'm sadly disappointed that the Megalopolis has not already undertaken serious engineering steps to lessen or even prevent the catastrophic type of damage that Sandy managed to deliver. Sandy was a very large category 1 hurricane. What would have resulted from a category 3, 4 or 5 on a similar path? No one could possibly imagine or want to see.
CO2 released by burning carbon based fuels and worsened by deforestation (forests, especially the tropical kind, scrub CO2 from the atmosphere), have been the major causes of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels during the last 100 years by far. The CO2 doesn't come from any other source in consequential amounts.
There are other very complicated cyclical causes that drive climate change through the ages, but during this short 100 or so year period, we have fully engaged an extremely interesting terrestrial experiment that pits human activity against formidably deadly and destructive forces of nature.
No matter the cause, sea level rise and climate change will increasingly produce random and powerful life threatening events that we must rise to meet and beat. Hardening our frail infrastructure, building sea barriers and realistic planning and execution will go a long way toward protecting against loss of life while making recovery feasible along our coasts for generations to come.
Costs of building the required protective systems would be great, but not nearly as great as the immeasurable costs in life and property that destructive storms, like Sandy and others, can and will cause in the future if nothing is done.
As CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere (and they have been), long wave radiation (heat) is more efficiently kept from radiating out into space at night. CO2 acts like an insulating blanket that doesn't allow the same amount of energy out of the earth's atmosphere at night compared to the amount it receives from the sun each day. Even if the sun cycled into a period of least output, a certain level of CO2 if high enough, would still disallow the planet to balance heating and cooling. There are other feedback features that make our climate change problems worse.
Daytime temperatures overall in the past 100 years or so have not risen that much world wide, now measured around 1.4 degrees F on average, but the warming trend is accelerating. If you look closely at weather data, you'll find that nighttime lows have been more impacted. Nighttime lows have warmed more on average than daytime highs.
Water covers over 2/3rds of our planet's surface and gains/releases heat at much slower rates than land areas. Luckily, large bodies of water act as global temperature moderating units. Unfortunately, the oceans are also warming. Not as much or as fast as the atmosphere, but warming none the less. Warming water expands, causing some sea level rise.
The overall warming has also caused land and sea ice to melt off at increasing rates. Melting land based ice (glaciers) adds to sea level rise. Most glaciers around the world have been shrinking. Weather pattern changes have allowed a very few glaciers to expand at certain mountain elevations, but even these are losing volume at lower elevations. Sea level rise will eventually pose increasing problems for most low lying coastal areas. Any storm surge will be exacerbated by sea level rise, regardless of tides.
Sea level rise is not a theory. It's not spiritual. It's not political. It's not magical. But it is measurable and it is a fact. So even if storms don't get any more powerful, storm surge spillover will become a more frequent threat to vulnerable coastal communities. Highly populated low lying coastal areas may want to look at what the Netherlands have done to keep the frequently stormy North Sea out of their lands.
I'm sadly disappointed that the Megalopolis has not already undertaken serious engineering steps to lessen or even prevent the catastrophic type of damage that Sandy managed to deliver. Sandy was a very large category 1 hurricane. What would have resulted from a category 3, 4 or 5 on a similar path? No one could possibly imagine or want to see.
CO2 released by burning carbon based fuels and worsened by deforestation (forests, especially the tropical kind, scrub CO2 from the atmosphere), have been the major causes of increasing atmospheric CO2 levels during the last 100 years by far. The CO2 doesn't come from any other source in consequential amounts.
There are other very complicated cyclical causes that drive climate change through the ages, but during this short 100 or so year period, we have fully engaged an extremely interesting terrestrial experiment that pits human activity against formidably deadly and destructive forces of nature.
No matter the cause, sea level rise and climate change will increasingly produce random and powerful life threatening events that we must rise to meet and beat. Hardening our frail infrastructure, building sea barriers and realistic planning and execution will go a long way toward protecting against loss of life while making recovery feasible along our coasts for generations to come.
Costs of building the required protective systems would be great, but not nearly as great as the immeasurable costs in life and property that destructive storms, like Sandy and others, can and will cause in the future if nothing is done.
Posted by MaineBikah
31st Oct