Part of Series Climate Change

Climate change science

NASA scientist James Hansen, the godfather of climate change science

Melting Million Year Ice Sheets

Humans are interfering with the natural rhythm of sea levels by heating up the planet and melting the vast ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

Even the scientists used to believe these MAMMOTH ice sheets were untouchable. However nine billion humans with all their fossil-fuel-burning toys are showing immense impact on them in the short term.

Climate Disasters --- xfr ---

Overview

Water problems

Mold and rot

Debris everywhere

• Cities and land gets messed up with broken trees, abandoned cars, debris scattered everywhere

Hurricanes, Typhoons Persist

Timelines

• Katrina, New Orleans
• Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012

Freezes and Grid system Disasters

Forest and Wild fires

=== Sea Flooding Disasters much worse than Hurricanes

PROBLEM: Rapid Rise hard to Manage

But the reversal is likely to be very fast. After the end of the last ice age, there is evidence that the water rose about thirteen feet in a single century.

Today the rise is expected to FAR faster, could happen in just a few decades. If so, it would be a catastrophe for coastal cities around the world, causing hundreds of millions of people to flee from the coastlines and submerging trillions of dollars’ worth of real estate and infrastructure.

Solution: Stop burning Fossil Fuels ASAP

The best way to save coastal cities is to quit burning fossil fuels of coal, gas, and oil as soon as possible.

PROBLEM : Earth is 2-3 F Hotter - ice continues to melt!

PROBLEM: CO2 Greenhouse is Laggy

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is not like other kinds of air pollution, such as the chemicals that cause smog, which go away as soon as you stop dumping them into the sky (as happened, by and large, when catalytic converters were installed on cars). A good fraction of the CO2 emitted today will stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

But cutting CO2 massively can hold the warming to about three degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial temperatures. In that case we might only face two feet of sea-level rise by 2100, instead of 15+ feed.

Timelines

Sea Flooding and Tectonic plates over four-billion-years

Sea levels have fluctuated.

Sea Levels and Ice ages - Impact of Climate Change

In the last tens of thousands of years, have fluctuated wildly, driven by wobbles in the Earth’s orbit that change the angle and intensity of the sunlight hitting the planet and cause ice ages to come and go.

120 kya Last interglacial period

The temperature of the Earth was very much like it is today, sea levels were twenty to thirty feet higher.

20 kya peak of the last ice age

Sea levels were four hundred feet lower.

1900s Sea levels Rose +6 inches

Scientists estimate half of the recorded sea-level rise in the twentieth century came from the expansion of the warming oceans.

2000s Sea levels Rising twice as fast

By 2020 seas are rising at more than twice the rate they did in the last century. But as warming of the Earth increases and the ice sheets begin to feel the heat, the rate of sea-level rise is likely to increase even more rapidly.

Every year is essentially warmer than all years before. For example, 2016 was the hottest year on record. But the poles (where ice-sheets are) are affected far more - eg the Arctic was thirty-six degrees warmer than normal.

2100 - 8 foot sea level rise

A 2017 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, US says global sea-level rise could range from about one foot to more than eight feet by 2100.

But cutting CO2 massively can hold the warming to about three degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial temperatures. In that case we might only face two feet of sea-level rise by 2100, instead of 15+ feed.

Sea stays ALL the time

• Sea levels could be as much as ten feet higher by the end of the century.

Danger Spots include Richest Real Estate on Planet

Miami, FL

NYC

Tokyo

London MSA

LA, SFO

Developing Countries - Billion+ to be impacted

Bangladesh to disappear

Island nations go under