Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans as Antarctic Ice Melts | Hacker News Reader

Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans as Antarctic Ice Melts

nytimes.com

59 pointsconesus23 comments

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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

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

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...

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.

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.

I never said anything about ignoring the scientists. Calm down. Think and speak clearly. Make rational comments.

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...

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...

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... 2: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent...

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.

The problem seems to be largely linked to the warm water underneath the cool water at the grounding line. This water's movement seems to be affected by intensifying winds (see OP's link). [1] below gives a little more context and a short video that makes things a little more clear. Perhaps once the ice frees itself from the land mass, it remains mostly in tact in the colder water? IANAE.

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/west-antarctic-ic...

Gaining sea ice, losing land ice.

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?

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

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

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.

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

Depends where you are I guess - here in Scotland much of the coastline is dominated by inactive sea cliffs that were created when relative sea levels were a few meters higher - I guess this predicted rise may re-establish coastlines back to where they were when those cliff lines were active.

Unfortunately quite a lot of homes, roads and stuff are located below this old cliff line.

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.

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.

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.

That's a really good point. I guess people aren't thinking that far ahead. And I think for most environmentalists it's carbon tax or bust.

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

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