
Map Shows Where Sea Level Rise Will Drown American Cities - cryptoz
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/map-shows-sea-level-rise-will-drown-american-cities/
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Mz
_For example, when the global atmospheric CO2 level reaches 930 gigatons,
Boston will be due for about 9 feet of sea level rise. That’s enough water to
cover 25 percent of the city during high tide._

I know that is not insignificant, but these fears of sea level rise always
sound to me like people expect entire states to go under water or something.
This map actually suggests to me that a lot of this can be coped with.

But I mostly walk everywhere, so I don't have a guilty conscience. I gave up
my car years ago.

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dalke
Florida has the lowest highest point, at 345 feet. If all of the ice in
Antarctica melts, the sea level will rise "only" 200 feet. So even in the most
dire situation, entire US states will not go completely under water. That
said, almost the entire rest of the state would be underwater should that
happen.

However, ~1/5 of FL will be underwater, according to the 'unchecked pollution'
map, which is nothing to sneeze at.

> a lot of this can be coped with

Well, yes. Humans will likely survive as a species. As the article says:

> Existential nihilists however, can relax: Nobody’s doomed yet. Future
> Americans are going to deal with the flooded basements and foregone
> civilization.

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hugh4
How hard would it be to stick a sufficient amount of dust in the atmosphere to
give us a better handle on controlling the climate?

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dalke
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering#Solar_radi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_engineering#Solar_radiation_management)

A full nuclear exchange is predicted to lower the temperature by about 20 °C.
That depends on 7 billion tons of dust.

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hugh4
Interesting. So although that particular mechanism is undesirable it seems
like cancelling out a couple of degrees of warming is well within our
capabilities.

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dalke
Even if you are comfortable experimenting with the entire Earth's biosphere,
global warming is only one aspect of increased carbon emissions. As that
climate engineering page points out:

> These methods would not reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the
> atmosphere, and thus would not seek to address problems such as the ocean
> acidification caused by CO2.

