lightblueline

The Washington Post (February 2, 2007), like a thousand other news outlets, reviewed the latest report by the IPCC. This report offers the highest confidence to date that humans are affecting the global climate. On the topic of sea-level rise the Post says,

"The report was the first of four to be released this year by the panel, which was created by the United Nations in 1988. It found:

_Global warming is "very likely" caused by man, meaning more than 90 percent certain. That's the strongest expression of certainty to date from the panel.

_If nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperature could increase as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.

_But if the world does get greenhouse gas emissions under control _ something scientists say they hope can be done _ the best estimate is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit.

_Sea levels are projected to rise 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. Add another 4 to 8 inches if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.

Sea level rise could get worse after that. By 2100, if nothing is done to curb emissions, the melting of Greenland's ice sheet would be inevitable and the world's seas would eventually rise by more than 20 feet, Bindoff said.

That amount of sea rise would take centuries, said Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada, but 'if you're in Florida or Louisiana, or much of western Europe or southeast Asia or Bangladesh ... or Manhattan ... you don't want that,' he said."

We can add Santa Barbara to that list!

Read the whole article here:

Global Warming Unstoppable, Report Says

Download and read the IPCC report (Working Group 1, Summary for Policymakers) HERE:

Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis

Bill McKibben comments in the New York Review of Books (March 15, 2007):
Warning on Warming

The New York Times coverage is here:

Panel Issues Bleak Report on Climate Change

The NYT notes that predictable future ice melt contributions to sea level rise were not fully included in this report:

"Should greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere at even a moderate pace, average temperatures by the end of the century could match those last seen 125,000 years ago, in the previous warm spell between ice ages, the report said.

At that time, the panel said, sea levels were 12 to 20 feet higher than they are now. Muych of that extra water is now trapped in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which are eroding in some places.

The panel said there was no solid scientific understanding of how rapidly the vast stores of ice in polar regions will melt, so their estimates on new sea levels were based mainly on how much the warmed oceans will expand, and not on contributions from the melting of ice now on land.

Other scientists have recently reported evidence that the glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic could flow seaward far more quickly than estimated in the past, and they have proposed that the risks to coastal areas could be much more imminent. But the I.P.C.C. is proscribed by its charter from entering into speculation, and so could not include such possible instabilities in its assessment.

Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, said the lack of clarity should offer no one comfort. 'The speed with which melting ice sheets are raising sea levels is uncertain, but the report makes clear that sea levels will rise inexorably over the coming centuries,' he said. 'It is a question of when and how much, and not if,' he said..."