Sea level and Climate Change – a video worth viewing if you haven’t seen it, or reviewing in light of the newest information.
Most recently, extensive modeling work by University of Arizona geoscientist Jianjun Yin and colleagues found differences in the rate of subsurface ocean warming beneath the glacial outcroppings of Antarctica and Greenland.
Because overhanging ice shelves and buoyant fronts of tidewater glaciers can act as dams holding back upstream ice, the temperature of the subsurface seawater can be critical. As Yin notes in a University release, water can carry a lot more heat than air.
…co-author Jonathan T. Overpeck notes that ice sheets at both poles are feeling the heat.
“This does mean that both Greenland and Antarctica are probably going to melt faster than the scientific community previously thought,” he said. “This paper adds to the evidence that we could have sea level rise by the end of this century of around 1 meter (3 feet, 4 inches) and a good deal more in succeeding centuries.”
Current Arctic sea-ice extent: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Current Antarctic sea-ice extent: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
Wasn’t it just last year when deniers were crowing about the growth in Antarctic sea-ice extent???
One meter by the end of the century and a good deal more after that… sorry for screwing up all of your seaside property kids.
I hope 350 ppm is good enough…
Researchers refine assessment of tipping elements of the climate system
The West Antarctic ice sheet is a potential tipping element of the climate system that might have partially tipped already. According to a study now published in Climatic Change, experts can not rule out that ice masses in the Amundsen Sea sector of Antarctica have already begun to destabilize
A partial collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet for example could be equivalent to an additional 1.5 meters sea level rise, prior research showed. Most dykes in Europe may be elevated by only one meter.
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/kipp-elemente-im-klimasystem-forscher-verfeinern-ihre-einschaetzung
New uptake in Event: Meteotsunami
The water level rose seven metres on Tuesday, five metres on Wednesday but only three metres on Thursday,” shack owner Mario D’Souza said. “We had never seen anything like this earlier,”
http://climateforce.net/2011/07/11/new-uptake-in-event-meteotsunami/