Sea rise and climate change: let's do the science
The sea is rising, and may go up about a foot in the next 100 years in Puget Sound. That's serious, but much less alarming than the usual figures cited.
The images are ominous. Rising water rapidly covers large areas of New York and other major cities in Al Gore’s movie. Similar graphics show large portions of Seattle and Olympia underwater by 2100. A sports magazine cover shows a player knee deep in a flooded baseball stadium.
The threat of sea level rise is the most commonly cited threat of climate change. It is often used to justify the at-all-costs approach to address greenhouse gas emissions. Frequently these images are combined with the claim that “scientists” are warning of catastrophic ocean flooding.
Such claims are not only misleading. They also undermine the principle that our approach to reducing carbon emissions should be based on “scientific consensus.”
The "consensus" most often cited as the basis for sea-level rise projections is the 2007 United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report. It is called the largest and most comprehensive scientific document ever created. And it is often used as a bludgeon against anyone who questions the science of climate change.
Less often, however, is it actually read. As a result, many of the common claims about the impacts from climate change diverge widely from the actual science of climate change. The misleading and exaggerated claims about sea level are a prime example of this divergence.
Rather typically, Dan Siemann of the Seattle office of the National Wildlife Federation wrote recently that, “In the lifetime of a child born today, sea levels could rise 3 to 6 feet.” Earlier this year, the Obama Administration released a graphic showing a “medium” estimate of two feet of sea level rise in Puget Sound. Gov. Gregoire justified her climate change executive order this year by citing threats from rising sea level as one of the two “most significant impacts of climate change.”
But what does the science actually say?
In 2001, the IPCC’s report estimated “we project a sea level rise of 0.09 to 0.88 m for 1990 to 2100, with a central value of 0.48 m,” or a median rise of 19 inches over 100 years. As time has passed, the estimated rise has declined significantly. The latest report, released in 2007, says (p. 409) sea level rise under a business–as-usual scenario would be 8 to 19 inches. It should be noted that under the most aggressive scenario (p. 820) to reduce CO2 emissions, sea levels would still rise between 7 and 15 inches. That means the gap between the most aggressive and costly policy and the business-as-usual approach is only two to three inches.
Using this data, University of Washington scientists applied the numbers locally. They found (p. 10) that the most likely amount of sea level rise in the Puget Sound is 13 inches over 100 years. On the Olympic Peninsula, the increase is only two inches of rise due to vertical geological uplift. The highest possible rise, according to U.W. scientists, is 50 inches, an amount they call “very unlikely.”
These low numbers are one reason U.W. Atmospheric Sciences Professor David Battisti told The Seattle Times earlier this year: "I'm not worried about Greenland sliding into the sea. I'm not worried about sea levels going up.”
Those who continue to believe climate-induced sea level rise is a catastrophic threat have a few responses to these critiques. First, some advocates cite the possibility that these projections are low and that some scientists believe that climate change will cause significant melting of ice in Greenland or Antarctica. The IPCC, however, has considered this and has rejected such scenarios “because a basis in published literature is lacking.” If alarmists are going to cite the “scientific consensus,” they cannot simply ignore that consensus whenever it’s convenient, otherwise it simply becomes a game of picking the science you like to fit your preferred policy.
Second, environmental activists argue that we must prepare for expensive but unlikely scenarios to prevent serious costs. Such an approach would be comparable to saying we should be willing to spend virtually anything to prevent a serious meteor strike on the earth, because the impacts could be so catastrophic. Even if we destroyed the economy, the risk is worth it. But policymakers who took such an approach would destroy the economy chasing after scary, but highly unlikely, threats. Ignoring the costs and focusing only on the potential impacts leads to an approach that President Obama’s regulation czar Cass Sunstein has called “literally incoherent, simply because regulation itself can create risks.”
Finally, activists argue that while sea level may not be as big an issue as once believed, there are other issues that justify an at-all-costs approach to climate change. One of the new issues increasingly mentioned is acidification of the oceans. This sort of shifting from one claim to the next has the feel of staying one step ahead of the science. Indeed, advocates often make claims in areas where the science is immature, like acidification, and has not been reviewed by the IPCC, precisely because such ambiguity is useful in stressing worst-case scenarios and because emotion can most easily guide policy where facts are sparse.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 8:26 a.m. inappropriate
I'm glad you're not worried about Greenland slipping into the oceans. Just because it happened in the past doesn't mean the perfect storm of events will happen to cause it again.
I enjoyed learning about how alarmism moves to new scientific study areas like acidification. And once that is fully understood, will move to the next.
I think that this shift of focus is critical to the longterm survival of the human race.
In the new movie "Knowing", solar mechanics is moved into the forefront. What is healthy about this is that as society becomes aware that the Earth is always threatened by natural causes, that we learn to deal with the things we can control, and carry the ones we can't do anything about in the back of our mind.
So solar physicists understand that at some point in the future, Earth will be consumed by the sun as it stops burning hydrogen and moves to helium.
This gives humanity an obvious decision, if we plan on being around to witness this Grand Finale, we will have to be viewing it off-world or buried in the Earths crust far below the ocean floor.
And that is why humanity is so cool, because we actually understand how things will end yet can completely ignore it and go fishing.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 9:09 a.m. inappropriate
No critique of sea level rise and other global warming impacts are useful unless made in the context of rich versus poor differences. This piece fails that test. This is a global issue. The level of Puget Sound may not rise enough to have more than a minor effect and cost, but in low-laying areas around the globe a few inches is the difference between continued human habitation and mass migration. Rich regions, whether the Netherlands or Dade County, can afford to build defenses, but poor nations don’t have the means.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 9:35 a.m. inappropriate
There are large tracts of if not whole countries--Bangladesh, the Netherlands, the Maldives, etc.--that could be largely obliterated with a rise of only 1 foot. One foot is nothing to sneeze at.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:01 a.m. inappropriate
Good article but missing some key points. There is no nexus between CO2 and climate change. Turning food to fuel however creates several problems such as the emission of N2O from the fertilizer to grow corn for ethanol. And N2O is 298 times worse as a GWG than CO2. Biofuel crops also require significant irrigation, which depletes acquifers and increases humidity. Isn't water vapor a more significant GWG than CO2? And ethanol is corrosive so that we have to repair or replace more gas powered equipment. So your wanting to reduce GWG should be focused on the more serious pollutants including solar absorbing carbon soot, and the 40 billion pounds of aerosols emitted by East Asia every year.
Considering various crisis management scenarios, Earth has sequestered 94% of all atmospheric carbon underground over the past 540 million years from 7000 to 380ppm. The bump up from 250ppm over the past 250 years has increased plant and crop production by over 30%. Should society really be trying to reduce CO2 concentrations since nearly all plants die of starvation at about 150-180ppm? Why isn't the press covering the potential global starvation effect of CO2 reduction? Wouldn't any loss of plant growth more adversely affect the 3rd world than a 12 inch rise of sea level?
Adaptation should be the key of all government policies.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:06 a.m. inappropriate
Shouldn't worst-case and bad-case scenarios be overweighted in any risk/benefit analysis? The risk of my house burning down is slim, but it would be such a catastrophe that I pay for home insurance anyway. You talk like a moderate by saying that climate change is real but we shouldn't do anything risky -- but the riskiest thing is continuing to produce CO2 at our current rate, since it stays in the atmosphere for centuries and we don't have any good way of getting it out if it turns out to be a bigger problem than Todd Myers claims.
Also, I think Myers is cherry-picking by relying on the famously conservative 2007 IPCC findings and ignoring all the recent reports suggesting that ice is melting, and moving, faster than scientists had expected. Here's an example from the Guardian newspaper:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/01/sermilik-fjord-greenland-global-warming
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 2:02 p.m. inappropriate
Thanks for the comments on my piece. Two quick additions.
dn - My piece focuses on the science only. My first concern is that we work from an agreed-upon foundation before we talk about the economics. Others, however, have addressed concerns about the impact on the Maldives, Bangladesh and other poor countries. First, the IPCC analysis shows that under a business-as-usual scenario, such countries will be significantly better off, even with climate change. This estimate is backed up by Yale Professor Bill Nordhaus, who has been doing climate economic modeling for more than two decades. He has an excellent book, A Question of Balance, that outlines this data. Additionally, Bjorn Lomborg has done work with economists finding that it is cheaper for countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives to take precautions against sea level than to take steps to reduce CO2 emissions.
DannyK - Those who advocate drastic action on climate change often argue that the "consensus" science supports them. That consensus is based on the IPCC. We can of course look to other science, but that science exists on both sides and is still being analyzed. For every article in the Guardian, others point to articles in the Telegraph, etc. Those, however, who say that they are backed by the scientific consensus cannot ignore the very scientific conclusions of that consensus. That is the very definition of cherry picking.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 6:18 p.m. inappropriate
Speaking of cherry picking... it's difficult to believe anyone would pick that Battisti quote to support mathstractions of how many inches of water are going to rise or fall in the Clallam Bay and talk about building seawalls in the Maldives and all kinds of neat fodder, but say nothing about the food chain these waters support. Sure, it's always great sport to single out the most garish claims and refute them, but the underlying foundation of the criticism here proposes nothing substantial to take the place of the caricatures. Just more bland dismissal. Economy is not a monolithic entity or persona that needs to be defended, it is a product of the measurement of highly subjective transactions. Economy is malleable and adaptive to new paradigms. An obvious example is in the introduction of new technologies. Sadly, the same can't be said for ecology. Ecosystems are closed loops, not the infinite human interpretation that an economy is.
For over a century nearly every argument against protecting and elevating environment to the fore of policy has had its roots in refusal to adapt economic models to account for improved understanding of ecology. The reasoning behind protecting an economy in priority to an ecosystem has always been and remains nothing short of stubborn and short sighted self deception. Where short term political and financial gains may be made by a few, the foot dragging defense of status quo entitlements informed by economic valuations independent of ecological realities consistently produces wastelands.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:13 p.m. inappropriate
Todd Myers is the environmental director of the Washington Policy Center, a think tank whose list of board members form something of an interlocking directorate of pro-development, pro-big business interests. WPC's policy stance include advocacy for a continuation of private market solutions to health care reform, production of a documentary film about Rachel Carson entitled “Not Evil Just Wrong,” and climate change denial. Its largest donor is the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which supports organizations and individuals that promote corporate deregulation, the rollback of most social welfare programs, and the privatization of government services.
In contrast to the tooth fairy view of a mere 1 foot rise in local sea levels within the coming century, most climate change models forecast a global sea-level rise of half a meter (over 1½ feet) by 2100. Sea level rise could be substantially greater if the current rate of ice sheet melting on Greenland and Antarctica accelerate. One foot of sea level rise over the next 100 years is theoretically possible if the entire global population gets a serious grip on CO2 emissions, but under the "business as usual" scenario advocated by the WPC, sea levels could rise as much as 10 meters over the next century, according to NASA scientist and Columbia University professor James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate change researchers.
The problem is that the UW climate change researchers Mr. Myers cites, like most climate change scientists are working with models, which are by their very definition works in progress. In contrast to modeling predictions, mounting empirical evidence indicates that the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica may be melting much faster than has ever been observed before in human history. While the ice mass frozen over Greenland may be modest compared to that of Antacrtica, it is uniquely vulnerable to a rise in temperatures in the Arctic that is occurring at a faster rate than warming rates in other parts of the world. In light of this, WPC's complacency about local climate change impacts is deeply misleading.
Posted Thu, Sep 10, 11:19 p.m. inappropriate
"Additionally, Bjorn Lomborg has done work with economists finding that it is cheaper for countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives to take precautions against sea level than to take steps to reduce CO2 emissions."
Do you have a reference for that, Todd? I frankly don't understand how the Maldives, a group of mostly flat islands in the deep sea, can practically "take precautions"against sea level rise. In addition, Bangladesh and the Maldives make negligible contributions to the CO2 level. That's mostly rich countries, like the U.S.
Posted Fri, Sep 11, 1:07 a.m. inappropriate
The consensus of the world's security analysts was that Saddam Hussein had a chemical weapons program. The consensus of the world's climate scientists is that mankind is the principal cause of climate change. Just having a consensus doesn't establish a fact, only an opinion.
Posted Fri, Sep 11, 4:50 p.m. inappropriate
First: There is no such thing as "consensus" in science. It is a political term. Show me a "scientist" who "barks" about consensus, or "majority rule" and I'll show you a fraud. Grab your wallet. You are being duped. Think "cap and trade".
In order for a theory to be scientifically true, it must be very, very definitive, nearly unanimous. But, be careful. Remember the two Aussie medical researchers who posited, in 1995, that stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria. They were villified; ridiculed by the medical community. In 2005, they won the Nobel Price for Medicine.
Second: Oceans have been rising at about 7 inches per decade since the end of the last ice age, middle 1800's. This was graphically proven couple of years ago when compared with world Carbon use (no relation) See http://www.petitionproject.org/gw_article/GWReview_OISM150.pdf, page 3, Fig.11. This is peer reviewed research previously published in science journals.
Posted Fri, Sep 11, 4:56 p.m. inappropriate
DannyK - Lomborg makes a number of references to this. Read here for instance: http://sethkaufman.posterous.com/barrons-interview-with-bjorn-lomborg.
I admit that I'm not familiar with the particulars other than the fact the Netherlands have dealt with a similar issue for centuries and that current efforts are underway to protect Venice. I assume that the methods are something along those lines, albeit probably more dramatic. I've spoken with him personally about the numbers but not the methods.
Mud Baby - I am not familiar with the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. They are not contributors to the Environmental Center. Our funding comes from other sources like the Simonyi Foundation.
You note that the UW and IPCC rely on models, and are thus unreliable, but then you cite James Hansen's projections. On what does he base his projections? A time machine?
Posted Sat, Sep 12, 10:45 a.m. inappropriate
James Hansen certainly is a climate change modeler, and among the global community of climate change scientists he is regarded as something of an outlier, even a catastrophist. At least he relies on the most up to date information available. Hansen argues that cap-and-trade is essentially a sham, and states that annual global CO2 emissions would have to be cut by by approximately 75% in order to avert drastic heating of the atmosphere and oceans, and melting a huge percentage of the earth's continental ice masses and glaciers, a proposition that is totally sideways with the WPG's "what me worry?" view of the possibility of catastrophic sea level rise.
Hansen, like Al Gore, and unlike the WPC, urges the public to consider the issue of tipping points--abrupt and essentially irreversible climate changes that could occur within a few years, or at the most a decade or two, that could have extremely severe consequences for agriculture, species extinction, ecosystem collapse, disease outbreaks as tropical diseases spread to higher latitudes, etc., etc. A search of the UW/Dept. of Ecology SLR report for the phrase "tipping point" yielded no instances of this term.
The UW/Dept. of Ecology sea level rise impacts report concludes with several caveats including the admission that future contributions to sea level rise from melting of ice on Greenland and Antarctica are very uncertain. Finally, the authors emphasize that their analysis focuses on slow change in mean sea level, while societal and ecological impacts will be driven at least as much by extreme events as by slow sea level changes. Examples of such extreme events are the storm surges that accompanied Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, which wiped out densely populated coastal areas, claiming many lives and $$ billions worth of property damage.
A short but to the point discussion of the tipping point issue is posted here:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1885804,00.html
Al Gore is coming to town next month. Maybe his updated slide show will shed more light on tipping points and the urgent need for climate change adaptation.
Posted Sat, Sep 12, 12:46 p.m. inappropriate
Well, setting aside the long list of straw men and curiously misguided ecologists the author attacks, I turned to Climate Progress, and soon learned that, in 2008, the USGS issued a report that, after studying factors not considered by the IPCC, concluded "Inclusion of these processes in models will likely lead to sea-level projections for the end of the 21st century that substantially exceed the projections presented in the IPCC AR4 report".
But, wotthehell, we live on hills, we won't have any flooding anyway, right? Oh, wait.......
Posted Sat, Sep 12, 1:12 p.m. inappropriate
Incidentally, Crosscut shouldn't even be publishing this industry boilerplate- or label it clearly at the top.
Wading through the whole piece to discover the author isn't even a misguided and uninformed private citizen leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
Posted Sun, Sep 13, 1:08 a.m. inappropriate
Al Gore is coming to town? Cool! Maybe he'll bring new pictures of manbearpig. I don't know why more people don't take him serial.
Posted Mon, Sep 14, 3:48 a.m. inappropriate
"Beginning with just one meter of sea level rise, our nation would be physically under siege, with calamitous and destabilizing consequences."
Let's talk about how positive citizen actions, such as using public transit or advocating for green building to reduce energy consumption, can help the issue.
I think the visuals attached really help tell the story of what impact sea level rise will have; check out this PDF that demonstrates how just a small rise would impact our coastal cities, including Seattle.
http://www.architecture2030.org/current_situation/cutting_edge.html
And since everyone's talking about whose version of science is it, here are the sources:
Washington State Department of Transportation
San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission
Puget Sound LIDAR Consortium
Environmental Studies Laboratory, Department of Geosciences
The University of Arizona
The Redfish Group, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Posted Tue, Sep 15, 1:08 p.m. inappropriate
Dan Siemann of the National Wildlife Federation is right. In the lifetime of a child born today, sea levels could rise 3 to 6 feet. Author Todd Myers suggests that all of us need to read the IPCC report, but I don't believe he did. Admittedly it is a very difficult document to read - confusing to scientist and lay person alike.
The 2001 report by the IPCC estimated the sea level rise, assuming that among the ice sheets only Greenland counted and that the melting of the Antarctic would not be important on a century basis. In the 2007 report, however, the estimate of sea level rise included neither the melting of the Greenland nor of the Antarctic ice sheet and for this reason the estimate of sea level rise rate appears to be lower than in the earlier report (2001).
The observed accelerated melting of the Antarctic ice sheet between 2001 and 2007 changed everything. Even though the 2007 report included only the thermal expansion of the ocean and mountain glacier melting and then stated that the melting of the ice sheets would be the largest driver of sea level rise, they could not predict what that amount would be.
This has confused the issue for many people, but the general consensus now is that there will be a minimum of 3 feet of sea level rise by the year 2100. In particular, in the 21st century, the melting of the ice sheets and especially the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is the important component of sea level rise. Thus, the numbers quoted in your article from the IPCC report do not include the likely major component of sea level rise in the 21st century.
I have just published a book with co-author Rob Young about sea level rise, entitled The Rising Sea (Island Press).
Posted Tue, Sep 15, 8:36 p.m. inappropriate
Hey Todd, how much are you being paid by big interests to act as their toady?
While you're at it, why don't you also test that "silly theory" that the earth revolves around the sun? I think "the liberals" probably made that one up too. After all, it certainly looks like it's the other way around. Doesn't it?
Posted Fri, Sep 18, 6:33 p.m. inappropriate
Simply looking at the magnitude of the projected increase of average sea levels in Puget Sound does not actually consider the impacts this would have, and the author omits any actual consideration. Rather, he simply dismisses the projected 13" rise on its face, without ever examining the impacts. There are numerous areas in Puget Sound where the hydrological regime will be drastically changed. The impacts include:
i. Increased flooding of inhabited low lying areas; think pricey waterfront developments, including those that are already at sea level behind dikes.
ii. Salt water intrusion into fresh water aquifers used for potable water supplies by tens of thousands of people who live on the islands in Puget Sound (Anderson, Fox, Vashon, Bainbridge, Camano, Whidbey, Guemes, Fidalgo, the San Juans). All of these inhabited islands are entirely or mostly dependent on the integrity of the aquifers for their potable water.
iii. Drastic alteration to the structure and functioning of estuaries, lagoons and other coastal wetland types, thereby affecting productivity of the entire Sound.
iv. Loss of coastal wetlands (estuaries, lagoons and other coastal wetland types ) where there is no similar area where the higher sea level can form new (replacement) habitat, whether because of topography or development. There will likely be a large loss of physical area of remaining coastal wetlands (most have already been filled for development), simply because of the lack of area topographically suitable for these wetlands to "retreat" to.
v. Increase in the the tidally influenced zone of coastal rivers, which can extend many miles (>50) up these rivers.
vi. All the above exacerbated by the increased level of storm and tidal surges. Whether or not the frequency and magnitude of these high high tide events increases, a 13" increase will greatly magnify the impacts of these periodic and predictable events. If the frequency and magnitude of storms increases, then the impacts will also increase as the base level of Puget Sound increases.
I'm astonished that someone who works as an "environmental director" could write such a shallow and ignorant article. Perhaps he should take off his ideological blinders and take a basic course in environmental science. Maybe then his articles would amount to more than just propaganda blowing down transparently ridiculous straw men.
Posted Mon, Sep 28, 1:15 p.m. inappropriate
As recently as the late 1980s, the only sea level rise scenario available was one published by US EPA. Their high-end (maximum) scenario was 12 feet of sea level rise by 2100. Thereafter, that model was swamped by the IPCC's sea level rise scenarios, which are much less drastic. Each IPCC model update in fact has predicted less SLR than the one before it. It's interesting to note that each successive IPCC report has been more closely examined and influenced by the petroleum industry and petrochemical nations; for example, Saudi Arabia acquired a seat on the sea level rise working group. Under industry scrutiny, the authors of this consensus document conceded that perhaps ice sheet melting simply can't be reliably modelled, and therefore its influence on SLR should be relegated to some parenthetical scenarios rather than included in a robust way within the central model.
Posted Mon, Oct 12, 1:38 p.m. inappropriate
Here's some scary breaking news: A study by climate scientists at the University of Arizona finds CO2 levels similar to those now commonly regarded as adequate to tackle climate change were associated with temperatures about 3-6C (5-11F) higher, and sea levels 25-40m (80-130 ft) higher than today.
Check it out here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/8299426.stm