Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Sea Level Rise

The National Academy of Sciences assessment from 2015.

A key point is that sea level rise doesn't stop when and if we stop emitting excess CO2 and Methane.

CO2 remains in the atmosphere for Millenia, and will continue heating as long as that, and continue causing sea level rise.

To summarize NAS, if we continue emitting excess CO2 until 2100 we will have set into motion an eventual rise (they don't attempt to predict when) of 9.9 meters.  Within the USA that would affect over 20 million people and 21 major cities.

I suspect that last sentence is a BIG understatement, I also think the 9.9 meters is very conservative if it intends to the high water mark after several millennia--I think that level will appear within a few hundred years--2300 would be my guess--with even more to come in the further future.

This PNAS analysis from 2015 was also written before we became aware of the huge Methane spike from fracking.




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