lightblueline

Wired News reports on Jim Titus's data, which show the vulnerability of Eastern US beaches to even small amounts of sea-level rise. (Jim has been providing EPA data for the Lightblueline effort).

You can read the whole article on the Wired site: EPA Scientist Says East Coast Beaches Threatened by Sea Level, But Nobody’s Listening

Here is an excerpt:

The Los Angeles Times (March 12, 2009, Margot Roosevelt reporting)

The initial results of the Governor's project to inform coastal areas about potential vulnerability to sea-level rise are beginning to arrive.

Here is an excerpt from the LA Times article:

"California's interagency Climate Action Team on Wednesday issued the first of 40 reports on impacts and adaptation, outlining what the state's residents must do to deal with the floods, erosion and other effects expected from rising sea levels.

Source: University of Copenhagen March 10, 2009

"Research presented today at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change in Copenhagen shows that the upper range of sea level rise by 2100 could be in the range of about one meter, or possibly more. In the lower end of the spectrum it looks increasingly unlikely that sea level rise will be much less than 50 cm by 2100. This means that if emissions of greenhouse gases is not reduced quickly and substantially, even the best case scenario will hit low lying coastal areas housing one in ten humans on the planet hard.

Matthew Yi at the San Francisco Chronicle (11/15/2008) writes about this new executive order. Something that will, no doubt, have impacts at the local level too.
Read the whole article here:
Governor tells staff to prepare for warming

Excerpt:
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order Friday directing state agencies to study the effects of global warming and recommend how the state needs to adapt to such changes in land use planning and building new infrastructure.

National Geographic reports that the sea level rise in this century will be somewhere between two and a half and six and a half feet. Of course, looking at the next five-hundred years (which is what lightblueline suggests we do, since we do that anyhow for floods and earthquakes) this would translate into a rise between twelve and a half and thirty-two and a half feet. Split the difference and you have about the seven meter rise lightblueline has always been focused on.

Stefan Rahmstorf at Potsdam University (March 2007) discusses the IPCC sea level numbers:

You can read the whole analysis here:The IPCC sea level numbers

Excerpt below:
"
What is included in these sea level numbers?

Let us have a look at how these numbers were derived. They are made up of four components: thermal expansion, glaciers and ice caps (those exclude the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets), ice sheet surface mass balance, and ice sheet dynamical imbalance.

Scientific American (February 2008) outlines the risk that the major ice sheets (particularly the West Antarctic Ice Sheet) hold for potential rapid sea level rise. This piece is written by Robin Bell at Columbia University.

The Unquiet Ice (stub)

NOTE: the whole article requires a subscription.

Key Concepts:
The land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica hold enough water to raise global sea level by more than 200 feet.

The Guardian Unlimited reports: Sourcec: Reuters Thursday January 31 2008

Latest scientists' views of sea level rise

Sea level rise prediction estimates are running toward the top limit and beyond the IPCC predictions.

Excerpt Below: