Nasa forecast: Which cities will flood as ice melts?

[nitpicker]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41986163

Nasa forecast: Which cities will flood as ice melts?

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

16 November 2017

From the section Science & Environment

A forecasting tool reveals which cities will be affected as different portions of the ice sheet melt, say scientists. It looks at the Earth's spin and gravitational effects to predict how water will be "redistributed" globally. "This provides, for each city, a picture of which glaciers, ice sheets, [and] ice caps are of specific importance," say the researchers.

The tool has been developed by scientists at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Their findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

Senior scientist Dr Erik Ivins said: "As cities and countries attempt to build plans to mitigate flooding, they have to be thinking about 100 years in the future and they want to assess risk in the same way that insurance companies do." And this new tool provided a way for them to work out which ice sheets they should be "most worried about". It suggests that in London sea-level rise could be significantly affected by changes in the north-western part of the Greenland ice sheet.
(snip)

Dr Eric Larour, the lead developer on this project from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explained that three key processes influenced the "sea-level fingerprint", or pattern of sea-level change around the world.

The first is gravity. These [ice sheets] are huge masses that exert an attraction on the ocean," said Dr Larour. "When the ice shrinks, that attraction diminishes- and the sea will move away from that mass."

As well as this "push-pull influence" of ice, the ground under a melting ice sheet expands vertically, having previously been compressed by the sheer weight of ice.

The last factor involves the rotation of the planet itself. "You can think of the Earth as a spinning top," said Dr Larour. "As it spins it wobbles and as masses on its surface change, that wobble also changes. That, in turn, redistributes water around the Earth."

By computing each of these factors into their calculations, the researchers were able to build their city-specific forecasting tool. "We can compute the exact sensitivity - for a specific town - of a sea level to every ice mass in the world," Dr Larour told BBC News. "This gives you an idea, for your own city, of which glaciers, ice sheets and ice caps are of specific importance."
(snip)

[OnlinePoker]

1. During the last interglacial, sea levels were 6 meters higher than today

It happened then and it will happen again. The difference between then and now is the tool monkeys have created a society where a major percentage of the population lives on the coasts and it will be very difficult and expensive to move the infrastructure and people out of the way of the rising waters. I've only got 30-40 years left so I'll only see a 4 or 5 inch sea level rise in my remaining lifetime. Few politicians think and act beyond the next election cycle and the public won't pay the piper for future generations unless they are directly effected. I'm glad I won't be around to see it all fall apart.

[Duppers]

2. Me too.

But my son (only child) will see and experience the effects and suffering. It'll be more than just flooded coasts and $100 trillion+ of damages.
He's 30. I'm feeling bad for selfishly having him.





A group of around 400 demonstrators participate in a protest over climate change by burying their heads in the sand at Sydney's Bondi Beach November 13, 2014.