My partner asked me last week if I had heard the news that scientists discovered that the ice in Antarctica was melting and would be completely gone in the next few centuries. I remarked that I had seen a headline that had mentioned the Antarctic and sea-level rise, but I didn't read the article due to time restraints. In the days following that initial discussion with my partner, the story about this research has been everywhere. And for good reason.
Sea-level rise is one of the biggest threats humans face from a warming planet. As I learned in my Coastal Environments class more than a year ago, we are already experiencing sea-level rise. This is why coastal storms such as Sandy and the winter storms which battered the British coast this year were so devastating. Sea barriers that had been built to withstand 1 in 100 or 1 in 500 year storms were easily overtopped because the sea-level was higher than when these defenses were built (most "modern" sea defenses were built 50 - 100 years ago). In my class, we discussed how the IPCC 2007 report predicted a 0.6 to 1.9 feet rise in current sea-level by 2100 (The most recent report put sea-level at 1.7 to 3.2 feet higher than current levels by 2100). This prediction did not take into account ice melt from the great Antarctic ice sheets, but rather was derived from a combination of glacier melt (including some major glaciers in Greenland) and expanding water due to warmer sea temperatures. Of course, we all discussed the possible scenarios if Antarctica melted. It wasn't good, but since the scientific research had not yet provided any direction on the plausibility of this scenario, it wasn't entertained for long.
However, this week humans did get some definitive scientific research on this scenario. Forty years of careful research, monitoring, and analysis have led a team of scientists to conclude that the West Antarctic is on an unstoppable path to losing its land ice. They said their research has indicated that it will be slow at first but in the next 200 to 500 years, it will suddenly jump into high gear leading to a sea-levels at least 12 feet higher in addition to what has already been projected by climate scientists. Another, less-talked about study found that an ice basin in East Antarctica was also destabilizing, but the time-scale for that was much longer 5,000 to 10,000 years.
So what does this all mean for us? For starters, two-thirds of the world's population live in coastal areas, so the impact of sea-level rise is a clear and present danger. Even the meager 1.7 to 3.2 feet rise will cause havoc with infrastructure, buildings, communities, and agriculture in all areas of the world. Some island nations face obliteration based on the current IPCC prediction. This new study on the West Antarctic ice sheets has brought this very serious challenge back into public consciousness. It presents a litany of problems and questions such as: where will all the people go? how long will it take governments to come up with "managed retreat" plans to avoid mass refugee events? how big will the fight be between property owners and government if a "retreat" plan is implemented? will we wait to the last minute to confront this crisis as well?
Of course, this study is just the first one. More will come and need to be carried out. But the fact that 40 years of monitoring went into this study gives it a lot of weight. That is a lot of evidence that has built up. What does it all mean? Perhaps it is that we really have to address the fact that we are a part of this planet. We can innovate, we can engineer, but ultimately the human race is subject to the same forces that all other species are. It means that there will be more haggling and debate in the 200 years about whether the science is real, and who will get the pay out. It means a drastically different world beyond a chaotic climate. I am confident that humans will do something about this, however, it is really clear that our glutinous consumption of fossil fuels in the 20th and early 21st centuries will alter how our posterity will live for centuries to come.
Sea-level rise is one of the biggest threats humans face from a warming planet. As I learned in my Coastal Environments class more than a year ago, we are already experiencing sea-level rise. This is why coastal storms such as Sandy and the winter storms which battered the British coast this year were so devastating. Sea barriers that had been built to withstand 1 in 100 or 1 in 500 year storms were easily overtopped because the sea-level was higher than when these defenses were built (most "modern" sea defenses were built 50 - 100 years ago). In my class, we discussed how the IPCC 2007 report predicted a 0.6 to 1.9 feet rise in current sea-level by 2100 (The most recent report put sea-level at 1.7 to 3.2 feet higher than current levels by 2100). This prediction did not take into account ice melt from the great Antarctic ice sheets, but rather was derived from a combination of glacier melt (including some major glaciers in Greenland) and expanding water due to warmer sea temperatures. Of course, we all discussed the possible scenarios if Antarctica melted. It wasn't good, but since the scientific research had not yet provided any direction on the plausibility of this scenario, it wasn't entertained for long.
However, this week humans did get some definitive scientific research on this scenario. Forty years of careful research, monitoring, and analysis have led a team of scientists to conclude that the West Antarctic is on an unstoppable path to losing its land ice. They said their research has indicated that it will be slow at first but in the next 200 to 500 years, it will suddenly jump into high gear leading to a sea-levels at least 12 feet higher in addition to what has already been projected by climate scientists. Another, less-talked about study found that an ice basin in East Antarctica was also destabilizing, but the time-scale for that was much longer 5,000 to 10,000 years.
So what does this all mean for us? For starters, two-thirds of the world's population live in coastal areas, so the impact of sea-level rise is a clear and present danger. Even the meager 1.7 to 3.2 feet rise will cause havoc with infrastructure, buildings, communities, and agriculture in all areas of the world. Some island nations face obliteration based on the current IPCC prediction. This new study on the West Antarctic ice sheets has brought this very serious challenge back into public consciousness. It presents a litany of problems and questions such as: where will all the people go? how long will it take governments to come up with "managed retreat" plans to avoid mass refugee events? how big will the fight be between property owners and government if a "retreat" plan is implemented? will we wait to the last minute to confront this crisis as well?
Of course, this study is just the first one. More will come and need to be carried out. But the fact that 40 years of monitoring went into this study gives it a lot of weight. That is a lot of evidence that has built up. What does it all mean? Perhaps it is that we really have to address the fact that we are a part of this planet. We can innovate, we can engineer, but ultimately the human race is subject to the same forces that all other species are. It means that there will be more haggling and debate in the 200 years about whether the science is real, and who will get the pay out. It means a drastically different world beyond a chaotic climate. I am confident that humans will do something about this, however, it is really clear that our glutinous consumption of fossil fuels in the 20th and early 21st centuries will alter how our posterity will live for centuries to come.
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