SEA levels could rise more than 20 feet due to global warming — far higher than previous estimates, scientists claim. Many expect the West Antarctic ice sheet to collapse — which could see tides swamping the coasts of Europe and North America.

Experts predicted sea level rises of up to 17ft but boffins at Oregon State University say they did not take into account factors like gravity or changes in Earth’s rotation.

The study in journal Science claims America’s eastern seaboard could see tides up to 21ft higher — wiping out much of Washington DC — with most of Europe facing seas 18ft deeper.

This old chestnut again...

(Thanks for posting it Boater, but it's just another research paper to add to the mountainous pile. The aim of some researchers seems to be to outdo the results/ramifications detailed in prior work - so that people notice it = funding/kudos.) It seems to me that the subject is so complex and involves so many variables that it actually becomes fairly simple for all sorts of claims to be made. Just an opinion, mind you...

The major polluters will be cranking up the global warming deniers to insist that pumping a squillion tons of carbon omissions into the air each year has NO affect on the atmosphere.

And they've got this year's cold winter to support them as well.

20 meters would mean a 30-60m encroachment on beaches- basically very few beaches left in the world.

Yay .... no more chilled bottled water at 40baht a throw.

Funny how Global Warming turned into Climate Change.... it's happening, we didn't cause it, and there is sod all we can do about it ....... apart from live with it.

Global warming, climate change, tom'a'toe - tomat 'o'. Whatever happens we'll just have to cope with it. Although I only live about 20 mtrs above sea level so I might have to move...

...or buy youself a canoe - and paddles.

Global warming, climate change, tom'a'toe - tomat 'o'. Whatever happens we'll just have to cope with it. Although I only live about 20 mtrs above sea level so I might have to move...

Wait and see Tigger, it could become beach front property.

I'll make a fortune!!!

I'll still do the canoe though...

20 meters would mean a 30-60m encroachment on beaches- basically very few beaches left in the world.

I think the OP states 20 foot rise, not 20 meters. Not sure the number of beaches would decline much, though I suppose some will have been previously paved.

A talking chicken ran by me yelling "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" I guess I'll have to get out my hard hat to be safe

SEA levels could rise more than 20 feet

I'm sorry. I'll try to remember not to sit in the bath again

This old chestnut again...

(Thanks for posting it Boater, but it's just another research paper to add to the mountainous pile. The aim of some researchers seems to be to outdo the results/ramifications detailed in prior work - so that people notice it = funding/kudos.) It seems to me that the subject is so complex and involves so many variables that it actually becomes fairly simple for all sorts of claims to be made. Just an opinion, mind you...

Yes just like all the economists currently lining up to predict ever more dire consequences of the economic meltdown. The problem with all this is that if one bunch of researchers comes up with results that don't match or exceed all the previous work it is immediately discounted and anyone associated is held up to ridicule.

I think what they should do is take all the uncertainty and waiting out of it all and vapourise the entire <deleted>' Antarctic ice shelf using a bunch of nukes and see what happens. Bit of a pisseur if you are on holiday in the Maldives at the time and the 20 foot prediction is correct. But there you go, life's a biatch.

Certainly an interesting view Phil...

Sea levels up or down, there will be change either via natural causes or man-made effects and it's likely to affect 'our' living experiance. Personally my money is on a major earthquake disater before we see average sea levels change through warming of the planet effecting the polar ice; Tokoyo, San Francisco or Istanbul are all 'due'. Any of these being on the coast could see a tsumani follow, but apart from global financial impact probably little to effect my house. The one that would is probably Yellowstone's super volcano, enough dust in the air and we could all be getting lung cancer and no crops for a few years.

Who moved my cheese...

Nice site for related topics.

The one that would is probably Yellowstone's super volcano, enough dust in the air and we could all be getting lung cancer and no crops for a few years. [/url]

"We have all of the pre warning signs of a major eruption from a super volcano. - I want everyone to leave Yellowstone National Park and for 200 miles around the volcano caldera."

If that goes off, 200 or 2,000 miles will make little difference. The last super volcanic eruption was Toba, around 70.000 years ago and that dam near wiped out all life on the planet.

> ....and that dam near wiped out all life on the planet

Exactly - make peace with your god, saving for a rainy day makes little difference when it's raining volcanic ash.

Sea levels up or down, there will be change either via natural causes or man-made effects and it's likely to affect 'our' living experiance. Personally my money is on a major earthquake disater before we see average sea levels change through warming of the planet effecting the polar ice; Tokoyo, San Francisco or Istanbul are all 'due'. Any of these being on the coast could see a tsumani follow, but apart from global financial impact probably little to effect my house. The one that would is probably Yellowstone's super volcano, enough dust in the air and we could all be getting lung cancer and no crops for a few years.

Who moved my cheese...

Nice site for related topics.

what about Pattaya?

The bath would do it good.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090224/od_uk_...ctica_mountains

> ....and that dam near wiped out all life on the planet

Exactly - make peace with your god, saving for a rainy day makes little difference when it's raining volcanic ash.

And the really scary thing is that only a tiny percentage of the population of this planet realise how close we could be to total extinction.... climate change/global warming ..... <deleted> that, it's gradual and will take decades if not eons to even make a blip on the chart..... when we go, if we go, it'll be all together.

(just as the money runs out would be nice, it'll save all that messy head in a plastic bag business)

I agree with you Thad - I'd far prefer to go out with a bang...

A lot of people aren't aware that during one of the major past ice ages, the average surface temperature of the Earth went from a frozen state of -50 degrees celsius all the way up to +50 degrees in just about a century, largely due to the carbon dioxide emissions of volcanoes....

A lot of people aren't aware that during one of the major past ice ages, the average surface temperature of the Earth went from a frozen state of -50 degrees celsius all the way up to +50 degrees in just about a century, largely due to the carbon dioxide emissions of volcanoes....

I would love to see a source for that little snippet of info.

I'd like to come across the thermometer they used to measure it...

Be worth a packet now.

I'd like to come across the thermometer they used to measure it...

Me too ... and I didn't think that I would get a source even if I left it a few days..... as it is complete and utter BS.

The average global temperature over the Earth has bounced between 12 degrees C and 22 degrees C, notice, not a minus sign in sight, a change of a massive 10 degrees, there have been 5 'cool' periods and 4 'warm ones, and the total amount of time when added up shows that the Earth has been 'warm' for a significantly longer time than 'cool'....... and this is in 4 billion years.

The largest changes in temperature occur in places like Winnipeg, where, if memory serves from my old geography lessons, it can be -30 in winter and +30 in summer...... but that happens every year and will be nudged a couple of degrees either side when the climate changes on a global scale.

There has never, ever, ever, ever, ever been a one hundred degree shift in the average global temperature, not once over 4 billion years, and definitely not in one century.

I dunno if the UK Telegraph is a rag or a respected bird cage liner, but an article in 28 March edition has an interesting rebuttal on the rise of the ocean.

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/50673-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html

Its a catchy title " Rise of sea levels is the greatest lie ever told" It seems an eminment Swedish scholar who ran the International Commission on Sea Level Change just thinks its a lot of hooey. While I agree with him, others have drank the koolaid and disagree.

Snowball Earth and the origin of the ozone layer

An oxygen rich atmosphere had two important advantages for life. Organisms not using oxygen for their metabolism, such as anaerobe bacteria, base their metabolism on fermentation. The abundance of oxygen makes respiration possible, a much more effective energy source for life. The second advantage of an oxygen rich atmosphere is that oxygen reacts to ozone in the higher atmosphere, causing the origin of the Earth's ozone layer. The ozone layer protects the Earth's surface from ultraviolet radiation, which is harmful for life. Without the ozone layer, the development of more complex life later on would probably have been impossible.[37]

The natural evolution of the Sun made it gradually more luminous during the Archaean and Proterozoic eons. The Sun's luminocity increases 6% every billion years.[38] As a result, the Earth began to receive more heat from the Sun in the Proterozoic eon. However, the Earth did not get warmer. Instead, the geological record seems to suggest it cooled dramatically during the early Proterozoic. Glacial deposits found on all cratons show that about 2.3 Ga, the Earth underwent its first big ice age (the Makganyene ice age).[39] Some scientists suggest this and following Proterozoic ice ages were so severe that the planet was totally frozen over from the poles to the equator, a hypothesis called Snowball Earth. Not all geologists agree with this scenario and older, Archaean ice ages have been postulated, but the ice age 2.3 Ga is the first such event for which the evidence is universally accepted.

The ice age around 2.3 Ga could have been directly caused by the increased oxygen concentration in the atmosphere, which caused the decrease of methane (CH4) in the atmosphere. Methane is a strong greenhouse gas, but with oxygen it reacts to form CO2, a less effective greenhouse gas.[40] When free oxygen became available in the atmosphere, the concentration of methane could have decreased dramatically, enough to counter the effect of the increasing heat flow from the Sun.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Earth

Regards.

The average global temperature over the Earth has bounced between 12 degrees C and 22 degrees C, notice, not a minus sign in sight, a change of a massive 10 degrees, there have been 5 'cool' periods and 4 'warm ones, and the total amount of time when added up shows that the Earth has been 'warm' for a significantly longer time than 'cool'....... and this is in 4 billion years.

Well, if you give credance to the Snowball Earth hypothesis, thenduring seeveral periods of the earth's history, the average global tmeperature would have been below zero degrees.

...several periods of the earth's history, the average global tmeperature would have been below zero degrees.

Life has survived and excelled during some warm periods on planet Earth, a mild 20 degree average is not the norm. for this planet. Human kind has been lucky for the past 20,000 years. It will probably get warmer or cool in the era ahead - if it stays the same we will continue to be lucky - is not we will change or be replaced as top of the food chain by something new - but we are not the final step in evolution.