Sea Levels Are Rising Faster Than Most Pessimistic Forecasts - 'fearmongering scientists' undersold things once again

Climate change is causing oceans to rise quicker than scientists’ most pessimistic forecasts, resulting in earlier flood risks to coastal economies already struggling to adapt.

The revised estimates published Tuesday in Ocean Science impact the two-fifths of the Earth’s population who live near coastlines. Insured property worth trillions of dollars could face even greater danger from floods, superstorms and tidal surges. The research suggests that countries will have to rein in their greenhouse gas emissions even more than expected to keep sea levels in check.

“It means our carbon budget is even more depleted,” said Aslak Grinsted, a geophysicist at the University of Copenhagen who co-authored the research. Economies need to slash an additional 200 billion metric tons of carbon — equivalent to about five years of global emissions — to remain within the thresholds set by previous forecasts, he said.

The researchers built on the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s models, many of which only consider the last 150 years, by incorporating data going back several centuries. The new observations show about a half-meter of sea rise by the end of the century can now be expected with just a 0.5 degree Celsius rise in temperatures. Oceans could rise more than 1 meter at 2 degrees Celsius, a trajectory that will be easily passed under current climate policies.

“The models we are basing our predictions of sea-level rise on presently are not sensitive enough,” Grinsted said. “To put it plainly, they don’t hit the mark when we compare them to the rate of sea-level rise we see when comparing future scenarios with observations going back in time.”

The conclusions follow last month’s warning that rising temperatures have melted 28 trillion metric tons of ice — equivalent to a 100 meter thick sheet of ice covering the entire U.K. — making the worst-case climate scenarios more likely. The new methodology for tracking sea level change could help insurance companies, real estate developers and city planners erecting tidal-defense systems.

“The scenarios we see before us now regarding sea-level rise are too conservative – the sea looks, using our method, to rise more than what is believed using the present method,” Grinsted said, adding that his team at the Niels Bohr Institute is in touch with the IPCC about incorporating its results in next year’s sixth Assessment Report.
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Original paper: https://os.copernicus.org/articles/17/181/2021
Doi: 10.5194/os-17-181-2021
 
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I've been told for 25 - 30 years that oceans are rising, coasts are disintegrating, major cities will be underwater within 5 years, and it's all my fault for not being a good, green, bugpod-dweller.

Yet the family vacation home in Delaware is as close to the ocean today as it was in 1988....

I'm gonna press "X" to doubt on this one.
 
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More AWS-8Q Than You said:
I'm also pretty sure we're still technically coming out of an ice age. Makes figuring out what is actually "normal" kinda hard.
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We are currently in a warm interglacial (among many) in the Quaternary ice age that has persisted longer than humans have existed [the Quaternary, not the interglacial]. We're expected to reach the next glacial period (where Melancovich cycles are expected to start naturally reducing the temperature) in maybe the next 10,000 years or so.
If we were truly "coming out of an ice age," this would be the shortest ice age ever. The Quaternary is still just a blink of the eye in geologic terms.
For funzies, take a look at the geologic timescale and take note of what the "norm" was for each period.

I personally find it fascinating when you synthesize this with the concept of interstellar travel. There are many common tropes for "kinds" of planets we could discover/explore. There's jungle worlds, desert worlds, icy hellscapes, waterlogged balls of rock dotted with archipelagos and peninsulas, etc. It's not all that far-fetched given that our world was all of these at various points in time. If we found a planet "identical" to Earth, it could be in any of these states at a given time and would remain so for millions of years.
 
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Considering I live within driving distance of at least one of the 2 coasts I gotta be honest here. Ocean man! take me by the hand! lead me to the land that you understand.

Seriously though I remember them saying the coasts would be underwater b this year a few years back and though erosion is a problem in places it's not the same as water levels literally flooding the mainland. Through some fucked up dynamics you could potentially consider any living thing a "carbon" to be taxed or budgeted, fuck that noise. Ever seen those old scifi shows or movies where the evil robots or aliens call humans "carbons" sometimes like it's a fucking slur? That's probably how corporations pushing for carbon taxing see the peons below them. Can't like 100% guarantee it but thats just the general vibe I get off all this carbon budget/tax shit. it sees people less as people and more as potential carbon emissions statistics to rake cash from. No way in hell if this shit ever gets off the ground are the corporations actually fucking shit up gonna take any hits.
 
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Kari Kamiya said:
We were supposed to have another ice age like 20 years ago and the hole in the O-zone layer was supposed to have cooked us alive by now.
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Well yeah that's cus basically everyone except China stopped using CFCs, this is like saying meth is safe cus you quit before it destroyed your life.

X Pac Heat said:
it's okay, we're back in the paris accord so all will be well.
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It's a bit more like 'things might get worse at a slightly slower pace'. We're well beyond the point of doing anything about climate change except figuring out how to adapt to what's basically going to be a global hostile environment aside from places that are gonna win big like Russia and Canada, who are going to be flooded with climate refugees.
 
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The average sea level has been rising at a steady rate for the last 170 years. It hasn't accelerated unless you take a very peculiar definition of acceleration and then only use it to describe a very small number of sea level measurements.
 
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teriyakiburns said:
The average sea level has been rising at a steady rate for the last 170 years. It hasn't accelerated unless you take a very peculiar definition of acceleration and then only use it to describe a very small number of sea level measurements.
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Idk about you but that don't look steady to me
 
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the clap said:
Just a reminder not a single pier has been swallowed by sea levels rising or come close, not even 200+ year old ones like Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight. Neither have any countries/islands at sea level disappeared.

But sure, let's pretend we can predict the climate one year from now, when we can't predict the weather one week from now.
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What about Wakanda? Where are they now?
Stoneheart said:
Who cares? there is something called a dyke. they keep the water out...
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They've been making as many dykes as they can, but all it's kept afloat is manufacturers of hair dye.
 
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I'll believe when the at risk area property prices drop, banks start refusing insurance and mortgages for them and they stop developing new property there.
I'm also still waiting for all those Pacific island to sink like they were supposed to 10 years ago. (No, ones that eroded don't count).

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Climate doomposting is so tiring.
 
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Hackallier said:
I'll believe when the at risk area property prices drop, banks start refusing insurance and mortgages for them and they stop developing new property there.
I'm also still waiting for all those Pacific island to sink like they were supposed to 10 years ago. (No, ones that eroded don't count).

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Climate doomposting is so tiring.
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We still have X years to avert climate change is jurno cope, that ship has sailed.
 
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