
Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans as Antarctic Ice Melts - conesus
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/science/earth/collapse-of-parts-of-west-antarctica-ice-sheet-has-begun-scientists-say.html?src=twr&_r=1
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arethuza
It's perhaps interesting to note that sea levels have varied hugely even
within the timescales of human history - here is an excellent Time Team
special on "Britain's drowned world":

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9wQj6qX2I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9wQj6qX2I)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland)

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guelo
Oh, so there's no problem. Keep burning the oil people!

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TallGuyShort
That's not what he's saying at all. If you want the issue of climate change to
get taken seriously, it needs to be good, sound, science. And that includes an
understanding of how similar changes in our environment have happened before,
what their effects were, etc...

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guelo
Or, apparently, if you want climate change to be taken seriously you have to
ignore scientists and pay attention to every amateur climate blogger's
anecdotes.

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arethuza
I wasn't trying to imply that there is anything dubious about the predictions,
just that it is interesting to note how much sea levels have varied in the (by
geological terms) fairly recent past.

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jstalin
Yet antarctic sea ice has been increasing annually and is near all-time highs
(since the 1979 satellite measurements began). That doesn't really indicate
warming (to me).

[http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomal...](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png)

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graeme
Scientists are well aware of this. You say it as though it disproves the
predictions made in the article, but you haven't said how. Particularly since
the predictions take your fact into account.

[http://www.livescience.com/23333-antarctic-sea-ice-global-
wa...](http://www.livescience.com/23333-antarctic-sea-ice-global-warming.html)

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jstalin
From that article: "But these effects are very small, and Antarctic sea-ice
levels have increased only marginally. In the coming decades, climate models
suggest rising global temperatures will overwhelm the other influences and
cause Antarctic sea ice to scale back, too."

If the Antarctic sea ice increase is "very small" and just "marginal," then
how is Arctic sea ice decrease not also _marginal_?

Antarctic sea ice is now 1.3 million sq km above the 1979-2008 mean (19% above
the mean).[1] Arctic sea ice is now 0.59 million sq km below the mean (4.8%
below the mean). [2]

1:
[http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent...](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png)
2:
[http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent...](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.arctic.png)

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hyperion2010
Derivatives. Instantaneous size doesn't matter. You have to measure how they
are changing. Furthermore the physical (not climate) models based on these
rates of change suggest that right now at this moment the rate of addition of
new material to the ice sheet will not matter because the rate of melting to
this point has made it unstable and the process of adding additional material
will not be able to counter the processes of melting.

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hackbinary
Will the addition of this fresh water do anything to mitigate the
acidification (because of dissolved CO2) in the oceans, or are we screwed here
as well?

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zacinbusiness
Adding too much fresh water to the sea will affect the way that heat is
conducted around the world via currents.

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conesus
A catastrophic event would move our nations into action, but even huge ice
sheets take a century to rise oceans 10ft.

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chr1
It would be interesting to know if it is possible to keep sea level low by
moving water to artificial inland lakes in currently dry places. There are
many places in Sahara, Persia, China where creating big inland lakes will be
possible, and desalinating and pumping water there might be cheaper than
building dams or leaving big cities.

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mrfusion
So has anyone considered buying up property where the new coastline would be?
Is it too uncertain?

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autokad
well, first you'd have to be around for another hundred years to collect it,
and birth rates at present values make a real estate investment for profit
100+ years from now rather unappealing. There are plenty of other things to
invest/trade in with much better net present values~

Also there are taxes on the land, and at any point the government can take
your land for economic development or to protect some rare sand turtle.

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jessaustin
_There are plenty of other things to invest /trade in with much better net
present values~_

If so, wouldn't mitigation be a more affordable response to warming than other
proposed solutions? That is, society should just purchase (cheap, apparently)
options on "second-tier" property, and use the massive profit those options
generate over the next century to compensate those who will be harmed by the
rise? What am I missing?

I realize that there are other harms from global warming besides changes in
sea levels, but perhaps a similar argument could be made for those harms? For
instance, options on farmland in Siberia could compensate the losses of
farmers in India.

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autokad
thats probably true, and trying to keep everything about the earth the same
for the next thousand years to preserve what ever it is we are trying to
preserve is probably unreasonable.

not saying nothing should be done about global warming, just that we should
expect change one way or another.

also there is evidence some of the spikes in warming since the 80s/90s may be
a direct result regulation in an attempt to end acid rain. we pulled a lot of
sulfur out of the air and expected nothing to change.

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mrfusion
Would there be enough melting to start inhabiting parts of Antarctica?

