17 thoughts on “They Say That Like It’s A Bad Thing”

  1. It would also put virtually all of south Florida and southern Louisiana underwater. The West Coast of North America, Europe and coastal areas around the Indian Ocean would all be inundated more than previously expected.

  3. It would also put virtually all of south Florida and southern Louisiana underwater. The West Coast of North America, Europe and coastal areas around the Indian Ocean would all be inundated more than previously expected.

    No, those places would have been smart enough to build dikes.

  5. Such a sea level rise would drown London, and specifically Westminster, too – and I wouldn’t be too sorry to see that happen either. Especially if it happened really fast, so the Government couldn’t just set up somewhere else and carry on squandering taxpayers’ money.

    Also, I live in a small town close to the sea, that has a lot of areas at very low level which are total and absolute sh!tholes, full of druggies and various other lowlife. I wouldn’t be sorry to see them go, either.

  6. This reminds me of the comic who said, “In the War of 1812, the British burned our capital. And to think we never had the descency to thank them.”

  8. But would we sit still while it happens? I think not.

    First, I don’t believe it to start with. Not to mention that their dire predictions NEVER come with a time scale. The ice caps can’t melt overnight, or even over a few months.

    It would take years. During which threy would at least partially freeze during the winter.

    Only a fool would stay put as the sea level rose around his feet. Then again, there is no dearth of fools in D.C.

  9. That’s probably with the time scale of a hundred years at least. The predictions probably also have some time scale estimates if you read the originals (or the IPCC mashups).

    What’s more interesting is the matter of ice dynamics. What affects the melt rate as the melting progresses… They are hard problems and warrant more investigation. There are some possibilities of rapid periods of sea level rise (less than a meter in a decade perhaps and IIRC).

    The attitude here shown towards sea level rise is interesting too.

  10. mz, my comment at least was tongue in cheek. A global sea level rise of the scale described would be a disaster – but even disasters have benefits, too.

    A related comment might be that when the jihadis finally decide to give us the present of a bucket of sunshine, the best target they could possibly choose from our point of view would be DC. From a British point of view the second best would probably be Westminster. Guy Fawkes had a point.

    Third and fourth best would be Wall Street and the City of London, in that order, where the current economic problems of the entire world were hatched.

  12. If large portions of an ice sheet slid off Antarctica into the ocean, the corresponding sea level rise would be essentially instantaneous (allowing time for the wave to propagate outwards)

    Floating sheets of ice will displace a corresponding volume of water whether or not it ever melts.

  13. Heh!

    After I post this wikipedia excerpt on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, I’ll duck!

    James Hansen, a senior NASA scientist who is a leading climate adviser to the US government, said the results were deeply worrying. “Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid,” he said.

    Explosively rapid?

  14. Bill THAT is exactly the kind of thing that makes me go hmmmmm. They never use words like “rapid” by itself or just “increased”, they invariably go for the apocalyptic. I’m waiting for them to say the current cold weather is their anti-thermonuclear proof and just wait for the hot swing this cold wave brings about.

  15. Ah, Fletcher popped up again I see, after the prophecy of “Nehemiah Scudder” I mean Palin.
    Now Robert Ferrigno agrees with your dark vision of an Atlantisized New Orleans, burning
    oil derricks, a gulf of Mexico impervious to traffic, but I don’t put much stock in the IPCC’s predictions anyways

  16. Imagine what a sea-level rise will do to Dubai. There’s a vast amount of wealth invested in the Palm Islands and World Islands projects – man-made sand bars on the sea. The Burj Dubai (world’s tallest structure) and the surrounding brand new city with plenty more towers, is also pretty much at sea level.

    I’ve heard it said that Dubai, with all it’s mega-construction projects and almost no oil, is the world’s biggest Ponzi scheme. (And it’s showing signs of collapse.) Sounds like they’ll have trouble keeping the place above water in more ways than one.

  17. If large portions of an ice sheet slid off Antarctica into the ocean, the corresponding sea level rise would be essentially instantaneous (allowing time for the wave to propagate outwards)

    Oh my, the horror. Did you see that ice sheet calving in Lake Erie? Ohio is lost. Canada is next when that wave hits. Hansen was right!

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