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Selasa, 29 Juli 2014

More than 2.5m Sea Level Rise by 2040?

A warming period more than 400,000 years ago pushed the Greenland ice sheet past its stability threshold (which may have been no more than several degrees above pre-industrial temperatures). This resulted in a nearly complete deglaciation of southern Greenland, raising global sea levels some 4.5-6 meters, found a recent study by Reyes et al. Due to melting elsewhere, global mean sea level then was 6 to 13 metres above the present level. Indeed, melting of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet can add a further 6-meter rise in sea levels. If the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) were to melt as well, sea levels would rise by around 70 metres.

Sea level is now rising by 3.1mm (0.122 inch) per year. Much of this rise is due to rising temperatures, but there are also other factors. One quarter of the rise results from groundwater depletion, while run off from melting ice and glaciers adds another quarter and the remainder is attributed to thermal expansion of sea water. Furthermore, as temperatures rise, feedbacks start to kick in, e.g. the kinetic energy from stronger waves and more intense storms can speed things up.

Clearly, a rapid multi-meter rise would be devastating as it would flood many coastal cities, as well as much of the land now used to grow food. By how much have sea levels been rising recently and how fast can they be expected to rise in the near future?
NASA image, data by the JPL PODAAC, in support of the NASA's MEaSUREs program.
Sea levels have risen by some 60 mm over the past 20 years, as above NASA image shows, which has a linear trendline added. The question is whether a linear trendline is the most appropriate trendline, given that it suggests that a similar rise could be expected over the next 20 years. A polynomial trendline appears to fit the data better, as the animation below shows.


Such a polynomial trendline, however, points at a similar rise (of some 50 mm) in just four years time, with an even more steeper rise to follow, as illustrated by the image below.


And indeed, such a rise doesn't slow down there. A polynomial trendline applied to the data points at a sea level rise of more than 2.5 m (8.2 ft) by the year 2040.



The image below gives an idea of what a sea level rise of six feet (1.829 m) would do to the City of New York. Of course, this is only the sea level rise. Storm surge would come on top of this, as discussed at Ten Dangers of Global Warming.



So, what would be more appropriate, to expect sea levels to continue to rise in a linear way, or to take into account feedbacks that could speed things up? Where such feedbacks could lead to is illustrated by the image below.
[ from: How many deaths could result from failure to act on climate change? click on image to enlarge ]
This calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan blog.


References

- South Greenland ice-sheet collapse during Marine Isotope Stage 11, Reyes et al. (2014)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v510/n7506/full/nature13456.html

- Nonsustainable groundwater sustaining irrigation: A global assessment, Yoshihide Wada et al. (2012)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011WR010562/abstract

- Groundwater Depletion Linked to Rising Sea Levels
http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2010/11/groundwater-depletion-linked-to-rising.html

- Assessment of the Jason-2 Extension to the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 Sea-Surface Height Time Series for Global Mean Sea Level Monitoring, Beckley et al. (2010)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01490419.2010.491029

- Feedbacks in the Arctic
http://climateplan.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

- How many deaths could result from failure to act on climate change? (2014)
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-many-deaths-could-result-from-failure-to-act-on-climate-change.html



Senin, 26 November 2012

The Growing Threat of Catastrophic Storm Surge in the Next 30 Years on a Fast, Global Warming Induced, Sea Level Rise and its Consequences for Coastal Cities and Humanity

By Malcolm P.R. Light
November 11, 2012

Abstract

Methane is erupting as widespread torches and fountains in the Arctic ocean up to 1 km across and is exponentially increasing in concentration in the Arctic atmosphere (Shakova et al. 2008 and 2010; Light and Carana 2012; Light 2012). The Arctic atmospheric methane is mostly derived from Arctic subsea shelf and slope methane hydrates due to their destabilization by globally warmed Gulf Stream currents which enter the Arctic west of Svalbard and through the Barents Sea. In the North Atlantic, the surface of the Gulf Stream is heated in the summer and is marked by excessive evaporation due to the global warming effects of pollution clouds emanating from North America (Figure 5; IPCC Working Group 1. Fig. 10.12 Lavatus Prodeo, 2012).
The exponential increase in Arctic atmospheric methane has caused an exponential decrease in the volume of Arctic sea ice and in the continent wide reflectivity (albedo) of the Greenland ice cap (Light 2012; NASA Mod 10A1 data, from Carana, 2012). The atmospheric Arctic methane which is almost half the density of air is rising like hydrogen into the Stratosphere where it is forming and all encompassing global warming veil further aggravating the global warming of the lower level greenhouse gas clouds.

The ice melt back curves from the oldest lower 5* year old ice to the youngest shallowest 2 and 1 year old ice are caused by the progressive increase in temperature of the Gulf Stream “Atlantic Waters” which are entering the Arctic beneath the ice and melting it from the bottom up. The heating of the Gulf Stream waters is directly linked to the global warming of the North Atlantic caused by green house gas pollution blowing east off North America.

Above summary diagram (Figure 15, click on image to enlarge) shows all the determined global warming temperature curves and the latest "Sandy" storm surge curve based on a mean storm surge of 14 feet added to the mean latent heat of ice melting curve (Light 2012; Fichetti, 2012). All the global warming curves converge on a region between 2034 and 2052 where the mean atmospheric temperature anomaly will be greater than 8°C and all of the Earth's ice caps will have melted with a consequent sea level rise of 68.3 m (224 feet) above mean sea level (Wales, 2012). In particular the accelerated global warming curve from Carana (2012) and the "Sandy" storm surge curve converge on the mean atmospheric temperature extinction point derived from 20 estimates (Light 2012). This gives great confidence in the interpretation that we can expect catastrophic climate change from methane induced global warming between 2034 and 2052 unless humanity sharply cuts back some 90 to 95% on global greenhouse gas emissions and converts all its energy resources to renewable energy/ nuclear power.

A series of progressive extinction zones have been determined (after Parry et al. 2007) and include:-
  • Bleaching of most corals when the atmospheric temperature anomaly is between 1 and 2°C
  • Extreme droughts will extend over 1 - 30% of the land area when the atmospheric temperature anomaly exceeds 2°C which will make more than 1.8 billion people water stressed.
  • Widespread coral mortality will occur when the mean atmospheric temperature anomaly is between 2.5°C and 3.5°C and will be associated with a massive increase in the ferocity of tropical cyclones/hurricanes far in excess of the Sandy super storm.
  • Complete deglaciation and coastal inundation is expected when the mean atmospheric temperature anomaly increases from 4 to 8°C with a consequent sea level rise of some 68.3 metres (224 feet) above sea level. There will be major global extinction over this temperature interval as cereal production sharply decreases outside of the tropics.
Super storm Sandy has shown that Manhattan is already open to storm surge flooding and by 2016 when the Arctic Ocean begins to be free of ice, we can expect more violent hurricanes bearing down on the eastern coastline of the United States and increasing catastrophic damage to the coastal cities there.

The Alamo Project is a call for United States scientists and engineers to volunteer to develop a system of destroying the fast growing methane clouds in the atmosphere by radio/laser means or other processes before they destroy us. See this page:-
http://www.facebook.com/AlamoProject

Immediate and concerted action must be taken by governments and oil companies to depressurize the Arctic subsea methane reserves by extracting the methane, liquefying it and selling it as a green house gas energy source (see the ANGELS Project). See this post:-
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2012/06/angels-proposal.html

If greenhouse gas emissions are not sharply curtailed by 90% to 95% and the Arctic subsea and atmospheric methane extracted and destroyed, mean rising sea levels will breach the Thames Barrier by 2029 flooding London and the proposed Verrazano Narrows barrier in New York by 2030. The base of the Washington Monument (D.C.) will be inundated by 2031. By 2051, total global deglaciation will finally cause the sea level to rise up the lower 35% of the Washington Monument and humanity will have been eliminated by worldwide flooding and firestorms.




Introduction

Satellite atmospheric methane concentration data over the Arctic region between November 2008 and November 2011 indicate a rapid build up of methane around 7 km altitude (Figure 1; Yurganov 2012 in Carana 2012) and by 2012 the low level methane clouds have continued to thicken and spread pervasively into Russia, Europe, Alaska, Canada and Greenland (Figure 2; Yurganov 2012).


This methane has almost half the density the cold dry polar air at STP (Engineering Toolbox, 2011) and rises like hydrogen into the stratosphere where it is accumulating as a world encompassing methane warming veil (methane in wet air may be transported horizontally by storm systems (Light, 2012).). In addition because methane has a global warming potential of close to 100 during the first 15 to 20 years of its life (Dessus et al. 2001) it will preferentially warm up and expand compared to the other atmospheric gases and thus drop even further in density making it much lighter than the cold polar air. This means that 1 ppmv of methane (1000 ppb methane) is equivalent to 100 ppmv carbon dioxide making its global warming effect far exceed that of carbon dioxide.

The rising light Arctic methane migration routes have been interpreted on a Hippo profile (from Wofsy et al. et al. 2009) using the inflexion points on the temperature and methane concentration profiles similar to the system used to identify deep oceanic current trends using salinity and temperature data (Tharp and Frankel, 1986). The light Arctic methane is rising almost vertically up into the stratosphere between 60° North and the North Pole where it is trapped below the hydrogen in the upper stratosphere against which it has an upper diffuse boundary as shown by the fall off in methane concentration between 40 km and 50 km altitude (Nassar et al. 2005). A further very important consequence of the light methane rising like hydrogen into the upper stratosphere where it forms a stable zone beneath the hydrogen between 30 km and 50 km height, is that this methane is never recorded in the mean global warming gas measurements made at Mauna Loa.

The Arctic atmospheric methane is being generated by the destabilization of subsea Arctic Ocean shelf and slope methane hydrates (Figure 3, Max and Lowrie 1993). If only a few percent of these methane hydrates become destabilized they will release enough methane into the atmosphere to cause total extinction of all life on the surface of the Earth from the resulting global warming induced heat wave and firestorm (Light 2011, 2012; Light and Solana, 2002).




Some of the methane hydrate is associated with the spreading Gakkel Ridge hydrothermal activity and is being destabilized by earthquakes as indicated by high concentrations of major faults in the zones of maximum subsea eruptions (Figure 4a; Harrison et al. 2008). The zone of extreme methane emission shown on Figure 4a is represented by the anomalously high methane concentration peaks some exceeding 8 ppmv in the Laptev Sea and East Siberia Sea on Figure 4b (from Pravettoni, 2009) and show that subsea atmospheric methane emissions were already climbing here before 2005.

However the main methane hydrate destabilizing factor is the Arctic extension of the globally warmed Gulf Stream which splits and enters the Arctic region flowing beneath the drift ice west of Svalbard and through the Barents Sea. These two hot Gulf Stream currents converge on the slope region of the East Siberian Shelf (Coachman and Barnes, 1963; MIT 2012; Wales 2012; Shakova et al, 2008; 2010) causing widespread destabilization of the subsea methane hydrates and Arctic methane eruption into the atmosphere. This warm Gulf Stream water is now progressively destabilizing more and more of the methane hydrates releasing increasing amounts of methane into the already globally warmed Arctic atmosphere heating it further.
The Gulf Stream which starts SW of Florida, crosses and bifurcates in the Atlantic where it undergoes excessive global warming in Summer and forms an area of extreme evaporation (Figure 6; Light 2012; Shakova et al. 2008, 2010; Devconsultancy 2010). A southern cyclic branch of the Gulf stream develops Hurricanes off West Africa and leads them back to the Caribbean and the East Coast of the United States and Canada as has just been exemplified by the devastating super storm Sandy (Figure 6). The north east branch of the Gulf Stream (North Atlantic Circulation) warms Western Europe and the increasing Gulf Stream evaporation is causing a large increase in European rainfall, This NE branch of the Gulf Stream enters the Arctic Ocean west of Svalbard with a separate branch via the Barents Sea and where these two branches converge on the shelf slope region at the end of the Eurasian Basin in the Laptev Sea they destabilize the methane hydrates (see Figures 4a, 4b and 6) producing an exponential increase in the rate at which subsea methane is erupting into the Arctic atmosphere as fountains (torches) up to 1 km across (Figures 6; Light 2012; Shakova et al. 2008; 2010).


The recent super storm Sandy (Figure 7) in late October 2012 linked with an Arctic cold front and generated a massive tidal surge at New York in excess of 14 feet above mean sea level causing widespread deaths, devastation, fires and electric power black outs for millions of Americans. Super storm Sandy was formed by the convergence of Gulf Stream (atmospheric methane emission) globally heated Arctic air and a Gulf Stream generated tropical super storm - hurricane (Figure 7; Eoimages, 2012). NASA modelling shows that the methane being emitted in the Arctic is rising up into the stratosphere where it forms a continuous Methane Stratospheric Global Warming Veil. The methane concentration is at present densest in the equatorial and mid -latitudes where reaches concentrations of 1.8 ppmv, much higher than occurs at lower levels in the atmosphere and this stratospheric methane is progressively spreading northwards over the region where super storm Sandy ran aground onto the eastern coastline of the United States (Figure 8; NASA, 2012). The continuous Methane Stratospheric Global Warming Veil is causing extreme heating of the Earth's surface by trapping the suns heat below it and is further increasing the amount of heating and evaporation that is taking place over the Central Atlantic (Figure 8).

Data Sources

The massive 14 foot tidal surge (Scientific American 2012). caused by the Sandy super storm has been combined with the complete set of Arctic atmospheric global warming sea ice melt back and sea level rise data to produce a complete analysis of the likely trend of the global warming induced extinction events in the next 50 years.

The sharp increase in methane emissions at Svalbard north of Norway indicate that by the end of August 2010 the concentration of atmospheric methane sourced from the destabilization of subsea methane hydrates was growing at an increased and anomalous rate as was confirmed later by data from Barrow Point Alaska (Figure 9; NOAA 2011a; Carana 2012).

In addition data from Piomass volume of Arctic melt back show that the Arctic Sea ice has shrunk at a much faster rate than predicted by IPCC modelling projections (Figure 10; Stroeve 2007; NSIDC, Naam 2012), enabling a date correction to be applied to the mean IPCC global atmospheric trend for the Arctic region (Light 2012).

Figure 11 shows an exponential regression of the Piomas yearly minimum ice volume data indicating that the start of complete melt back Arctic sea ice will begin in 2015 and it also gives the range of the exponential estimate (Zhang and Rothrock 2003; Wipneus 2012).


The exponential regression of some of the twelve Piomas monthly average Arctic ice volumes are shown on Figure 12 and have been used to determine monthly melt back times (Zhang and Rothrock, 2003; Wipneus 2012).

Figure 13 shows the 12 monthly average Arctic ice volume data with polynomial trends showing the start of Arctic ice cap melt back in 2016 and complete loss of the Arctic sea ice pack by 2032 (Neven 2012).

Giss maximum surface mean monthly maximum temperature anomalies (NASA 2012) have been used to generate 12 converging amplitude envelopes of the 11 year moving average with the final mean convergent point fixed at 2015.757 which is almost identical to the Piomas estimates of the start of Arctic sea ice melt back (Figure 14).

This point represents the mean start point of complete Arctic sea ice melt back because the convergence in the amplitude of the monthly Giss surface temperature anomalies is caused by the latent heat of melting and freezing of the surface Arctic ice which is progressively diminishing until it is finally gone by about 2015.757.


Figure 15 (clickon image to enlarge) is a summary diagram showing all the determined global warming temperature curves and the latest "Sandy" storm surge curve based on adding 14 feet to the mean latent heat of ice melting curve (Light 2012; Fichetti, 2012). All the global warming curves converge on a region between 2034 and 2052 where the atmospheric temperature anomaly will be greater than 8°C and all of the Earth's ice caps will have melted with a consequent sea level rise of 68.3 metres (224 feet) above mean sea level (Wales, 2012). In particular the accelerated global warming curve from Carana (2012) and the "Sandy" storm surge curve (data from Fichetti, 2012) converge on the mean atmospheric temperature extinction point derived from 20 estimates (Light 2012). This gives great confidence in the interpretation that we can expect catastrophic climate change from methane induced global warming between 2034 and 2052 unless humanity sharply cuts back (90 - 95 %) on global greenhouse gas emissions and converts all its energy resources to renewable energy/ nuclear power.


Figure 16 (click on image to enlarge) shows all the progressive extinction events caused by the rising atmospheric temperature due to global warming based on IPCC data (Parry et al. 2007). All the determined global warming temperature curves converge on a region between 2034 and 2052 where the mean atmospheric temperature anomaly will be greater then 8°C and all the worlds ice caps will have completely melted. The progressive extinction zones shown on this diagram from Parry et al. 2007 and include:-
  • Bleaching of most corals when the atmospheric temperature anomaly is between 1 and 2°C
  • Extreme droughts will extend over 1 - 30% of the land area when the atmospheric temperature anomaly exceeds 2°C which will make more than 1.8 billion people water stressed.
  • Widespread coral mortality will occur when the mean atmospheric temperature anomaly is between 2.5°C and 3.5°C which will be associated with a massive increase in the ferocity of tropical cyclones/hurricanes far in excess of the Sandy super storm (Fichetti 2012).
  • Complete deglaciation and coastal inundation will occur when the mean atmospheric temperature anomaly increases from 4 to 8 degrees C with a consequent sea level rise of some 68.3 metres (224 feet) above sea level. Major global extinction will occur over this temperature interval as cereal production sharply decreases outside of the tropics.


Arctic Sea Ice Melt Back Times

Arctic sea ice melt back times have been estimated from the area, volume and thickness of the Arctic sea ice and include Piomas yearly average Arctic sea volumes (Zhang and Rothrock, 2003, 2012), NSIDC yearly average Arctic ice areas (Tschudi and Maslanik, 2012) and mean Arctic shelf ice thickness (Kwok and Rothrock, 2008)(Figure 17; Table 1).
Giss convergence trends on mean maximum monthly surface temperature data (NASA, Hansen 2012) are also shown and correlate very well with the Piomass Arctic sea ice volume melt back time of 2016 (Figure 17, Table 1). The mean Arctic sea ice total melt back time from 41 estimates is between 2022 and 2023 and the ice will be entirely gone between 2037 and 2040 (Figure 17, Table 1).

The upper part of Figure 17 is a composite of Piomas Arctic sea ice volume start and end exponential regression trends, a graph of the decreasing mean thickness of Arctic sea ice in metres (from Kwok and Rothrock, 2008) and a atmospheric temperature graph showing the various extinction zones from Parry et al. 2007.

The lower part of Figure 17 defines the NSIDC area sea ice extent in millions of square kilometres and shows the progressive melt back of the 5+ year old, 4 year old, 3 year old and 2 year old sea ice by 2037. The ice melt back from the oldest lower 5* year old ice to the youngest shallowest 2 and 1 year old ice is caused by the progressive increase in temperature of the Gulf Stream “Atlantic Waters” which are entering the Arctic beneath the ice and melting it from the bottom up. The heating of the Gulf Stream waters is directly linked to the global warming of the North Atlantic caused by green house gas pollution blowing east off North America.

It also graphically shows the progressive opening and expansion of the dark (low albedo) Arctic ocean and the trend of the globally warmed Gulf Stream/Atlantic waters along the European - Russian shelf edge - slope where it is destabilizing the methane hydrates and releasing vast quantities of methane into the Arctic atmosphere before its cyclic return to the North Atlantic in the Arctic drift ice region.

Table 1 shows the Arctic sea ice melt back data from Piomass ice volume (Zang and Rothrock 2003, 2012), area (NSIDC , Tschudi and Maslanik 2012) and Giss surface maximum convergence data (NASA, Hansen 2012). Major Arctic methane emissions were observed at Svalbard at the end of August 2010 (Figure 9) but Pravettoni (2009) indicate that anomalous methane emissions into the Arctic atmosphere began before that time and had exceeded 8 ppmv and 6 ppmv in the area of the Laptev and East Siberia Seas before 2005 (Figure 4b) This methane concentration is equivalent to 600 to 800 ppmv of additional carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere at a methane global warming potential of 100 (Dessus et al. 2008). This shows that even before 2009, the atmospheric methane content in the Laptev sea had in places exceeded twice the global warming effect of the present mean global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide generating a relative temperature anomaly of more than 8°C.

The exponential increase in the rate of Arctic methane emissions will cause a continuous zone in the Arctic clear of sea ice after 2016 (Table 1). This low albedo open Arctic ocean will have no ice cover at all and will absorb large quantities of solar energy quickly heating the water up, further destabilizing the subsea shelf and slope methane hydrates and releasing large quantities of methane into the Arctic atmosphere and stratosphere where it will thicken and extend as an all encompassing global warming veil further aggravating the already serious global warming of the Earth's surface.

The oldest, 5+ year old Arctic sea ice will be completely melted by 2022 followed immediately by the 4 year old ice in 2023 and these times also represent the mean time for the complete melt back of all of the Arctic sea ice (Table 1). The 3 year old ice is expected to be completely melted by 2026 and the 2 year old ice completely gone by 2037 (Table 1). The 2037 melt back date for the 2 year old ice also corresponds with final date of the total melt back of all the Arctic sea ice (Piomas maximum ice volume exponential regression trend) while a linear extrapolation of the decline of Arctic sea ice mean thickness reaches zero around 2040 (data from Kwok and Rothrock, 2009). This implies that there will be complete melting and loss of the entire 2 year old and 1 year old Arctic ice by 2037 to 2040 (Table 1). The low albedo Arctic Ocean will now have no ice cover at all and will absorb large quantities of solar energy causing massive warming of the ocean waters and extreme destabilization of the subsea methane hydrates releasing large volumes of methane directly into the Arctic atmosphere. Exponential trends on the 1 year sea ice area data suggest that snow will finally cease to fall in the Arctic region between 2066 and 2067.


Sea Level Rise

Global and Arctic Atmosphere and ice melt back temperature curves which show the rate of sea level rise and the time of flooding of world oceanic islands and coastal cities are shown on Figures 18 to 27 and Tables 1 and 2. These diagrams have a mean latent heat of ice cap melting curve for which the sea level rise has been calculated from 2015 and this reaches a maximum of 68.3 meters (224 feet) by 2051. In addition the minimum and maximum latent heat of ice melting curves have also been estimated from the range shown by the exponential regression trends on the Piomass ice volume curve in Figure 11.

A yellow global extinction zone is outlined vertically on the diagrams between an atmospheric temperature anomaly of 2°C and 8°C and the Giss surface maximum temperature curve defined from the monthly convergence data (Light, 2012). The yellow global extinction zone is bounded laterally by the maximum and minimum latent heat of Arctic ice melting curves.

A "Sandy" storm surge of 14 feet above sea level has been added to the mean Arctic sea level rise calculated from the mean latent heat of ice melting curve and used to calculate a "Sandy" storm surge curve. The relative altitude and time of flooding of particular islands and cities are shown by horizontal blue lines in Figures 18 to 27. The intersection of these blue lines with the mean latent heat of ice melting curve gives the mean time of flooding from sea level rise/sea barrier breaching under fair weather conditions. The intersection of the island/city altitude blue lines with the "Sandy" storm surge curve gives the time of flooding under extreme to catastrophic tropical storm/cyclone/hurricane conditions. Because the storm systems are going to increase in intensity as global warming accelerates, the estimated flooding time is a maximum future time and the flooding could occur even earlier depending on the ferocity of the storms.

The following list shows the regions dealt with in the diagrams 18 to 27 which graphically display the data in Table 2.
  • Figure 18. World ocean islands - Tuvalu, Maldives, Kiribati and the Marshall islands.
  • Figure 19. United States - Boston, San Francisco, Miami, Houston, New York and Washington.
  • Figure 20. South America - Caribbean - Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Havana, Nassau.
  • Figure 21. W. Europe - London, Dublin and Berlin
  • Figure 22. Netherlands - Flood Barrier Breaching
  • Figure 23. Europe - Scandinavia - Iceland - Mose Venice, Emms Germany, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Reykjavik and Stockholm.
  • Figure 24. Africa - Accra, Lagos.
  • Figure 25. Middle East - Abu Dabai, Kuwait City, Doha Qatar, Manama Bahrain, Cairo, Tel Aviv and Tunis.
  • Figure 26. India - Australia - Bangladesh, Karachi, Colombo, Sydney, Darwin and Wellington.
  • Figure 27. Far East - Shanghai, Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Beijing, Seoul and Taipei.
The maximum time of inundation of various coastal cities, coastlines and coastal barriers is also shown on Table 2 (after Hillen et al. 2010; Hargraves, 2012).

Rising sea levels will breach the Thames Barrier by 2029 flooding London and the proposed Verrazano Narrows barrier in New York by 2030.

The base of the Washington Monument (D.C.) will be inundated by 2031. Total global deglaciation will cause the sea level to rise up the lower 35% of the Washington Monument by 2051 (68.3 m or 224 feet above present sea level).

Because of the massive increase in the strength of the storm systems and waves, high rise buildings in many of the coastal city centers will suffer irreparable damage and collapse so that the core zones of the cities will be represented by a massive pile of wave pulverised debris. Unfortunately by that time a large portion of sea life will be extinct and the city debris fields will not form a haven for coral reefs.

The seas will probably still be occupied by the long lasting giant jellyfish (such as are now fished off Japan), rays and sharks (living respectively since 670, 415 and 380 million years ago) and the sea floor by coeolocanths (living since 400 million years ago)(Calder, 1984).

The city rubble zones will probably be occupied by predatory fish (living since 425 million years ago)(Calder 1984). Life will also continue in the vicinity of oceanic black smokers so long as the oceans remain below boiling point.
Alamo Project

When the Arctic ice cap melts towards the end of 2015, there will be a massive increase in the amount of heat being absorbed by the Arctic ocean from the sun and the Gulf Stream which presently feeds the Arctic with Atlantic water along the west side of Svalbard and through the Barents Sea. Normally, the Gulf Stream is cooled when it hits the floating ice pack and this will cease to happen bringing even vaster amounts of Atlantic heat via the Gulf Stream into the Arctic. Consequently, the Arctic subsea methane hydrates will destabilize at an even faster rate, because of the increasing Arctic Ocean temperature, pouring methane into the Arctic atmosphere and stratosphere.

The extreme weather events in the United States this year which included record heating and drought conditions, massive loss of food crops with farmers going bankrupt, more hurricane flooding in New Orleans and tornadoes and the Super storm Sandy in New York are just a small sample of what will come in the next four or five summers as the Arctic ice finally melts. The Arctic ice cap works like the Earth's air conditioner because of the latent heat of melting and freezing of the floating ice and its moderating effect on atmospheric temperatures.

The extensive stratospheric methane warming veil that is spreading over the United States is undoubtedly the reason for the extreme weather events and very high temperatures. The livelihoods of all the American people are going to be totally compromised in the next few years, unless we develop a system of destroying the atmospheric methane that is erupting in the Arctic from the destabilization of submarine methane hydrates and the methane that is accumulating as a global warming veil in the stratosphere.

We need to act.

We are facing impossible odds with regard to the Arctic ocean methane release and in the same way that Colonel Travis drew a line at the Alamo to ask for volunteers to help him defend the mission against Santa Ana's massive Mexican army, I am drawing a virtual line through the snow on the top of the Arctic ice pack to ask for volunteers to defend the American people from the fast-gathering Arctic methane global firestorm.

We desperately need dedicated scientists and engineers to volunteer to develop an effective 'action at a distance' method of destroying the Arctic oceanic methane clouds as they are erupting from the sea surface and entering the stratosphere and mesosphere. This could be done using a 13.56 MHz methane destruction radio frequency which has been used in the laboratory to convert methane to nano diamonds, methane molecule vibrational frequency lasers or other geoengineering methods. If the United States can land giant rovers on the mars with a skycrane, surely American engineers and scientists are up to this challenge. We need to get rid of as much of this atmospheric methane as we can, to drop the polar temperatures to reasonable levels. This will of course have to go hand in hand with a massive cut back in carbon dioxide emissions from all developed and developing countries.

To receive updates or post comments and suggestions, join the Alamo Project email group at:
http://groups.google.com/group/alamo-project/subscribe
or visit the page at:
http://www.facebook.com/AlamoProject


ANGELS Project

If left alone the subsea Arctic methane hydrates will explosively destabilize on their own due to global warming and produce a massive Arctic wide methane “blowout” that will lead to humanity’s total extinction, probably before the middle of this century (Light 2012 a, b and c). AIRS atmospheric methane concentration data between 2008 and 2012 (Yurganov 2012) show that the Arctic has already entered the early stages of a subsea methane “blowout” so we need to step in as soon as we can (e.g. 2015) to prevent it escalating any further (Light 2012c).

The Arctic Natural Gas Extraction, Liquefaction & Sales (ANGELS) Proposal aims to reduce the threat of large, abrupt releases of methane in the Arctic, by extracting methane from Arctic methane hydrates prone to destabilization (Light, 2012c).

After the Arctic sea ice has gone (probably around 2015) we propose that a large consortium of oil and gas companies/governments set up drilling platforms near the regions of maximum subsea methane emissions and drill a whole series of shallow directional production drill holes into the subsea sub permafrost “free methane” reservoir in order to depressurize it in a controlled manner (Light 2012c). This methane will be produced to the surface, liquefied, stored and transported on LNG tankers as a “green energy” source to all nations, totally replacing oil and coal as the major energy source (Light 2012c). The subsea methane reserves are so large that they can supply the entire earth’s energy needs for several hundreds of years (Light 2012c). By sufficiently depressurizing the Arctic subsea sub permafrost methane it will be possible to draw down Arctic ocean water through the old eruption sites and fracture systems and destabilize the methane hydrates in a controlled way thus shutting down the entire Arctic subsea methane blowout (Light 2012c).

See this post:-
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com./2012/06/angels-proposal.html


Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Harold Hensel for finding additional data on the extreme methane emission points in the Arctic which confirmed the mapping procedures used in previous analyses of the Arctic region. My grateful thanks also go to Sam Carana for his stirling editing work on my many global warming articles in the Arctic News.


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http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-is-the-Ozone-Layer-Menaced-53762.shtml

ARCTIC METHANE EMERGENCY GROUP
http://ameg.me

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Jumat, 02 November 2012

Hurricane Sandy intensifies climate change debate

By Dorsi Diaz

Flooded Avenue C at East 6th Street in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood of Loisaida, October 30, 2012, moments before an explosion at the power substation took out power to the neighborhood. Credit: David Shankbone
Although recent polls show that 70% of people now believe in climate change, recent extreme weather events are sure to drive that number even higher. With the East Coast of the U.S. reeling from the extreme devastation of Hurricane Sandy, attention has been brought back to what caused the Superstorm and why.

Many in the scientific community point to climate change as being a major contributing factor in the unprecedented storm.

Paul Beckwith, climate scientist at The University of Ottawa and member of the Sierra Club Canada, goes into detail in explaining how Hurricane Sandy was fueled by climate change:
“Rising greenhouse gases are rapidly warming our climate with Arctic amplification by 5x due to darkening from sea ice and snow cover collapse. The resulting decrease in temperature gradient between the equator and Arctic slows the jet stream winds which increases their waviness in the north/south direction. Combined with 4% higher water vapor in warmer atmosphere, this waviness makes storms more intense and frequent and larger in size and occur in different places. It made Sandy enormous in size and made her turn left onto the U.S. coast instead of turn right like every other hurricane in history.”

In a comment to Dorsi Diaz, reporter for the Examiner, Beckwith goes on to explain what would have happened had Sandy not been influenced by the climate anomalies that fed into the storm:
“Without the blocking high pressure northward and low pressure trough pulling her to the coastline (from the jet stream waviness) she would have headed harmlessly out to sea. Without the huge waviness of the jets the massive and ongoing drought in the U.S. would not be occurring. As sea ice further declines these storms and drought and all extreme weather events are certain to explode in magnitude, size, and frequency.”

According to Sam Carana, AMEG member (Arctic Methane Emergency Group) and editor of the Arctic-News blog:
“Warming in the Arctic is accelerating at a pace several times that of the rest of the world. This is changing the jet stream, which is what forced Sandy to move inland, to spread out and to hang around for such a long time. Without more effective action on climate change, weather events like this can be expected to hit the U.S. more often and with increasing force in future.”

Although some die-hard climate skeptics say that Hurricane Sandy was not caused or fueled by climate change, that minority seems to be losing ground as evidence piles up in favor of those that believe that extreme weather events are being caused by a warming climate.

Nathan Currier, senior climate advisor for Public Policy Virginia, who also writes about climate change, had this to say about it in a recent article:
“All major components of this super storm show the signature of human-induced climate change to varying degrees, and without global warming the chance of the three occurring together like this would have a probability of about zero. So, let's make it simple, and just say climate change caused this storm.”

In a sampling of Americans, there are some interesting views and comments being made about climate change and its effects on the globe.

Writer Julia Hanna was amazed at Hurricane Sandy’s strength and ferocity,
“I heard about the hurricane from people posting about how the replica ship Bounty went down, and it seemed surreal to hear about a hurricane taking down a ship. I am not a climatologist, but I have never heard of a hurricane of such severity.”

Although losing ships in a hurricane is not a new phenomena, evidence is piling up that devastating hurricanes are on the rise due to global warming. In a report by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), hurricanes are expected to become more frequent in the coming decades:
“Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause hurricanes globally to be more intense on average (by 2 to 11% according to model projections for an IPCC A1B scenario). This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.”

As the clean-up from Hurricane Sandy continues, more people are starting to wonder why we are having such extreme weather events around the globe. Doug Harry, West Coast resident, comments:
“Too many people dismiss climate change. You don’t make mother nature angry.”

Many that Diaz interviewed agree with Doug, that the Earth is now showing us the consequences of not tackling climate change earlier on.

Patrick McNulty, another AMEG member, has some ideas for tackling the problem that climate change is bringing us.
“Not allowing solar radiation to re-radiate back out to space because of fossil fuel GHG's trapping that energy in the atmosphere/oceans raises Earths total energy budget closer to the surface. You can now expect once in a lifetime storms to occur every decade. BTW, my tunnel idea reverses this trend.”

Patrick McNulty proposes tunnels
Patrick’s tunnel idea for dealing with the effects of Arctic ice melting are one of the many “solutions” that are being examined in the response to battling the effects of climate change.

Changing the way we consume fossil fuels is being tackled by other inventive people including an idea that includes the use of “bio-fuel”. One manufacturer of this bio-fuel cites that there would be less impact on our environment, one way to slow down human’s contribution to the problem of our warming climate.

In a opening statement on their website, the makers of the new bio-fuel Envirolene say it's:
“the world’s strongest, cleanest alcohol fuel. It’s a new, more powerful class of ”oxygenate” fuel. It’s stronger and cleaner than ethanol, more profitable to produce, and this new clean fuel powers any gas or diesel engine from a ship to a small engine with no modifications.”

Jay Toups, CEO and managing partner of BioRoot Energy, the makers of Envirolene, comments,
“There are 1 billion plus tailpipes and smokestacks spewing emissions every day. That's the real threat because it never stops.”

Mead Rose, who has also been following the climate change debate for several years, closely follows the melting of the Arctic ice and it’s ramifications.

In one of the articles that Mead submitted, the evidence of climate suppression is exposed. In an 2009 article named, “Group Promoting Climate Skepticism has Extensive Ties to Exxon-Mobil”, evidence makes it clear that there has been an ongoing battle by Big Oil companies to discredit scientific evidence about climate change.

In his blunt statement in the article, Joseph Romm, lauded climate expert and author of the blog Climate Progress, said:
“Exxon-Mobil essentially funds people to lie. It’s important for people to understand that they pay off the overwhelming majority of groups in the area of junk science.”

Joe Romm also makes the connection between Superstorm Sandy and climate change when he stated today at Climate Progress:
“Scientists worst-case scenarios are already happening - latest findings deserve attention so that Sandy doesn't become just another Cassandra whose warnings are ignored. Now climate scientists project that we risk up to 10 times as much warming this century as in the last 50 years — with many devastating consequences from dramatic sea level rise to Dust-Bowlification.”

With the battle over climate change continuing, climate skeptics and disinformation concerns climate scientists who have been trying to warn of catastrophic consequences if we don’t address it now.

One well know climate scientist, Michael Mann, a Penn State University scientist who has been studying the climate for decades, said that ocean waters were about 1 degree warmer thanks to man-made climate change, one factor that clearly caused Sandy to swell. Mann, author of “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”, has been an outspoken critic on the debate over climate change.

Politicians, who used to shy away from the discussion of climate change, are even starting to “come clean” about what’s happening to our climate. With an estimated 3 foot rise in California’s sea level expected by 2100, California Governor Jerry Brown is pulling no punches in dealing with climate change deniers.

In a dire warning the California governor recently said:
Humanity is getting close to the point of no return.

EQECAT, a consultancy based in Oakland, California, estimates the economic losses from Hurricane Sandy at between $30 billion and $50 billion in economic losses, including property damage, lost business and extra living expenses.

The question is now, how much longer can we afford to debate about climate change?


From an article posted earlier at Examiner.com - posted with the author's permission

Related

Read other eye-opening reports by Dorsi Diaz on what happens next if unchecked climate change continues:
Climate Change: Extreme Weather, Storms and Hurricane Sandy
The Tipping Point - a Global Climate Change Warming Point of No Return
The Arctic Sea Ice is Melting: What Does This Mean For Us?

Senin, 29 Oktober 2012

Climate Change Sandy Says to US: 'Take That, Idiots!'

By Nathan Currier


Superstorm Sandy shows signature of human-induced climate change 

Nathan Currier, senior climate advisor for Public Policy Virginia

After the second presidential debate, moderator Candy Crowley said, "Climate change -- I had that question, all you climate change people. We just -- you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing, so you knew you kind of wanted to go with the economy." And the media's been talking about low information voters?

Now, along comes Sandy, who says to Candy, "Okay, then, take that!" See, Sandy doesn't get into debating these things, either. Now, let's see what Sandy's bill ends up being -- anyone taking bets? -- then let's sit down and talk some economy. In fact, there's an idea: Maybe a new American pastime could be organized 'disaster gambling,' with states collecting revenue as everyone bets on the tab for each new upcoming climate change disaster in their respective states?

Perhaps some still take issue with the suggestion that a superstorm like this is caused by our human-engendered climate change. But cigarette packages say things like, "cigarettes cause fatal lung disease." This, of course, is just shorthand, a monumental simplification, because in fact causation in complex systems is always a vastly complicated affair, and tobacco companies spent lots of money blowing smoke in the face of all that complexity: but the likelihood of getting lung disease is so greatly increased by smoking that eventually they gave up and we all agreed to go 'low-info' by just saying cigarettes cause fatal lung disease. As I'll demonstrate, in much the same way, we might as well keep it simple and just say this superstorm is caused by our human-made climate change.

I've been writing on the arctic crisis, and in a recent long list of immediate physical changes from loss of summer arctic sea ice, I listed (as #12) its potential impacts on weather at lower latitudes. It so happens that it is just at this time of year that this has the clearest line of causation, since lots of heat and moisture enter the atmosphere from the open waters that had been ice covered, and latent heat is released in the refreezing process, which progresses rapidly as the arctic cools down right around now. As Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University described in a recent paper: "This warming is clearly observable during autumn in near-surface air temperature anomalies in proximity to the areas of ice loss."

And this in turn becomes very important for large-scale atmospheric circulation. For example, Dr. Francis has used the metaphor of a river going down a steep incline, which runs straight, versus a river that runs along a flat plain, which tends to meander. Likewise the jet stream, since the normal energy gradient between arctic air and that of lower latitudes has become more relaxed in tandem with ice extent drops, is tending to meander more, and hence move more slowly as well. As the Francis paper said, "Previous studies support this idea: weaker zonal-mean, upper-level wind* is associated with increased atmospheric blocking events in the northern hemisphere." [*she means high west-east moving winds]

Let's look back again at this superstorm, and you'll see that important features of what you're about to experience stem from the arctic situation I've been discussing. First, arctic air is coming down to hook up with Sandy from the dip of the jet stream. Francis writes (from personal communication),
"The huge ice loss this summer, and subsequent enhanced warming of the Arctic (see attached figure), may be playing an important role in the evolution of Sandy by enhancing the amplitude of waves in the jet stream."

At the same time, high pressure over Greenland, and the extremely negative state of the North Atlantic Oscillation, is creating a blocking event that is impacting the path of Sandy herself, sending her back west over the U.S. Again, Dr. Francis (in personal communication):
"In this case, the effects could be causing strengthening of the block, elongating the block northward, and/or increasing its duration -- and this block is what's driving Sandy on such an unusual track westward into the mid-Atlantic coast."

Now, let's add to all that the underlying and obvious thing -- that Sandy is only surviving as a hurricane so far north, almost in November, because there are record high sea surface temperatures off the U.S. East coast right now. And while the third storm component, the one coming in from the west, might seem less remarkable, that is also something that generally becomes more probable with global warming, as our atmosphere can hold more water vapor as it warms and the evaporation rate is also increased by the warming. Thus, all major components of this superstorm show the signature of human-induced climate change to varying degrees, and without global warming the chance of the three occurring together like this would have a probability of about zero. So, let's make it simple, and just say climate change caused this storm.

I'm in New York City, just as much in the path of Sandy as so many others are, but come on, you do just have to sit back and love it, appreciate the full irony of it all, with Sandy striking right at those most sensitive loins of our American democracy, threatening to interrupt our sacred electoral process, after that process blocked climate change out, and now an atmospheric blocking pattern, created by that very climate change, pushes Sandy back on us. In a time when climate silence trumps climate science, when the candidates seem terrified to mention the 'C-word,' Candy, I hope you enjoy meeting Sandy. Maybe if the election gets as messed up as 2000, you three can even find time to meet up again, and go over a little issue you couldn't quite find time to fit in before? In my next piece I'll get back back to discussing what we should do right away, and hopefully it will at least be a bit clearer that this is serious business.

[First posted at the Huffington Post; posted with author's permission]