lightblueline

See also: NASA Finds Vast Regions of West Antarctica Melted in Recent Past

As Santa Barbara prepares to welcome James Hansen on February 5, we can read an interview he did which aired on February 2 on the program Living on Earth.

Dr. Hansen describes the scenario where ice sheet melting in the past resulted in a sea level rise at the rate of one meter every twenty years. When lightblueline talks about the vulnerability that climate change brings to coastal cities, this type of nonlinear process is precisely the target of our action. We are not predicting a seven meter rise in a century, even though this has happened in the past. We are predicting that the "business as usual" scenario of carbon generation will result in a global climate where we cannot be certain that the polar ice sheets will remain intact over the next several hundred years. The vulnerability to sea level rise is the same whether it takes seven decades or seventeen decades. We share a common future in Santa Barbrara that our children's children will face. We have only a few years to turn the situation around.

Even as the final touches of the IPCC report, scheduled to be released on February 2, are being hammered out, CNN.Com (from an AP report, February 29, 2007) notes that scientists are aready warning that the IPCC report does not adequately address the impacts on sea-level rise of melting Polar ice sheets:

"...The early versions of the report predict that by 2100 the sea level will rise anywhere between 5 and 23 inches. That's far lower than the 20 to 55 inches forecast by 2100 in a study published in the peer-review journal Science this month. Other climate experts, including NASA's James Hansen, predict sea level rise that can be measured by feet more than inches.

Reuters
Sunday, December 10, 2006 22:49 IST

In the Antartic summer, scientist work around the clock to uncover the past of this ice-clad landscape, in order to better predict its future, and the future of the planet: "Antarctica is a prime place for this research because it serves as an early warning system for climate change and is a major influence on global weather.

Because about 90 per cent of the world’s ice volume and 70 per cent of its fresh water is on the southernmost continent, any substantial warming could cause a rise in sea levels around the globe. Tom Wagner of the US National Science Foundation said, 'Its ice sheets are the main player in sea level rise; there is already evidence that they are shrinking.'"