A North American bias, I'd been following the Arctic Sea ice coverage which apparently hit a minimum in 2012. This year's season according to some reports is coming to close in about a week. But I then learned about the "Northern Sea Route" along the Russian Arctic coast. Without the scatter islands found on the Canadian side, apparently this is becoming a more frequently route. The Russians have added nuclear powered ice breakers and promote their route: Tis and ill wind that blows no good. Bob Wilson
...and rising tides lift all ships. Ports, however, are not quite as liftable: Future flood losses in major coastal cities: Costly projections
Rotterdam and New Orleans come to mind as cities that have significant parts behind dikes and levees. London has Thames storm surge gates and a curious pattern since 1983. Bob Wilson
It seems like everything else in the world, there will be winners and losers with a northwest passage. Russia and Canada look to be the winners - low lying islands look to be the losers. When life gives you lemons..... make vodka and lemonade. Rich countries should kill the flood insurance for places at risk and give incentives for people to move. The US government does the opposite. Poor countries... I have no answer. Who ever said life was fair?
We are starting to wise up, and the flood maps are being updated. The Changing Climate For Flood Insurance | Adaptation Hazards | LiveScience The main line media outlets might have stories about flood insurance premiums jumping from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
I've always thought that we do flood insurance very poorly in the US, and quite frankly I don't know who to feel less sorry for....the insurance companies of the idiots that keep building houses on previously flooded land time and time time and time again.....and expecting ME to help foot the bill. I had a friend whose house got slicked by Katrina fuss and cuss when he was rebuilding because the gov'mint was forcing him to raise their house something like 25' to meet the new flood code. When I reminded him that his usta-house was utterly removed from the property by the storm surge his actual response was: "Yeah...but that was Katrina. What do you think the odds are that THAT'S gonna happen again?!' Of course I told him. Accurately. It's not just coastal property owners. How many people live along a major river? How often do those flood? The answer to all of this? I really don't know, but it probably has to go something like this: You have a house that gets turned into an empty lot by flooding (maybe wildfire too?) Fine. Here's your check. Go rebuild......somewhere ELSE. Once. When I lived in Charleston (SC) I saw the "forced urban renewal" caused by Hugo. Lots of coastal residential property got turned into coastal commercial property. It's not a new concept. Galveston TX is NOW a relatively small coastal city because they got wiped out by a hurricane in 1900...and a lot of folks decided maybe it would be a good idea to move to Huston or DFW.
Its the federal government providing those low low rates to encourage people to build or buy in a flood zone. +1 Galveston has federal flood insurance too. I know people with beach houses there that rebuilt after the recent destruction.
If it was full of ice, at these temperatures, then there would be an indication of massive caving of glaciers. Massive caving suggests much higher than predicted sea level rise. The absense of ice is a data point that this caving is not occuring. The water temperatures though indicate rising temperatures, and less ice is less abedo which also indicates higher sea levels. We can find data to confirm one hypothesis and find evidence of that another is false by the sea ice levels.
Even Mojo is not that oblivious! He is trying to convince us that the is no human caused climate change, and that sea ice coverage is simply a side show that doesn't relate to anything. One fact in his (twisted) favor however is if al th current floating sea in becomes liquid water (not to mention some percentqge converted to vapor) it would actually decrease sea level since everyone who has ever filled a glass with ice and water knows that floating ice has greater volume than liquid water. What Mojo would have us forget is the potential for sea level rise with the melting of grounded ice, which happens to be a much larger mass by far, including Greenland and the Antarctic continent with millions of Cu KMs of landed ice, ever increasingly melting into the sea! The view from down so far in the sand must be pretty interesting! Icarus
Mother Earth is more than capable of balancing out her own frozen vs liquid vs gaseous water allotment. A Scientist Explains the Mystery of Recent Sea-Level Drop: Scientific American Don't even bother replying to this, I'll do it for you. Icarus: "You're a [insert insult here]!"
Once again, selective (short term) stats. Not to mention, the above linked article talks about "where the water went" but it doens't conclude that th extrodinary precip in Aus over the time period as not related to climate change. The inability of some deniers to see cause and effect on a global scale, especially when it is so glaringly obvious, it terrifying. It makes one question thier ability to reason in any other dimension. MP, you should probably go back to the sand box that is FhoPol. There are adults here who engage in real conversations rather than simple parrots of party lines. Icarus PS. if you wish to take that as an insult, well, if the shoe fits!
"That's yet another curveball that Fasullo and others are now working to explain." It's interesting that Australia could be a sponge that holds 7mm of global seawater.
For the record, I agree 1) that the Earth has warmed 2) that man has contributed to the warming That makes me a part of the 97% consensus. Actually I think you goofed the statement about floating ice.It has the same displacement as water.
Something smells bad here. My BS alarm is ringing. Sea levels have risen for at least 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age. Now they drop and its because of rain ? Did global warming cause it? Are we doomed because the seas will dry up ? (Stay tuned for Trenberth and the IPCCs next sad announcement. The End of the world as we know it.) My guess is the satellites are not accurately measuring sea level. Tide gauges havent dropped. So if the water is at the same level as it was last year, maybe we need to question the use of satellites.
The cubic volume of ice is greater than the cubic volume of water of the same quantity. I believe the density and therefore the displacement is the same. Icarus