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Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

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Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#23
post #9

potentially very dumb question but could you build hydro power solutions(from the ice melt/run off) that you then get clean power from / help cool ice...? So out of my depth here but genuinely curious. Also appreciate building a hydro power plant on a very unstable platform (ice) is problematic just curious of other solutions to generate hydro power...

Most of these ice sheets are already quite close to sea level and distributed across vast areas - like most of the coastline of Antarctica. Hydro power works best with significant altitude drops across very narrow choke-points.

Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#24
EDIT: The title has been updated: it used to say: "Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise to exceed 2m by 2100"

_________________________________________________________________

Incredibly misleading title. The expected ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise are, per the article:

26 cm (Assuming CO2 emissions from the Paris agreement)

51 cm (Assuming CO2 emissions in line with current emissions)

69 cm (Assuming CO2 emissions in line with current emissions and incorporation of thermal expansion)

The 2m value comes from the large error bars in the predictions. Global climate change is a huge problem, but misrepresenting results from a scientific study like this is just presenting ammunition to climate change deniers on a silver platter. I suggest replacing 'to' with 'may' in the title, as that is a better summary of the article.

Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#25
post #15

To be clear, the 2m increase is the analyzed 95th percentile (very high end) of the estimates of this meta-study, when you take both glacial melt and glacial expansion. The median values for low and high estimates are 69cm and 110cm. Not that this isn't still terrifying, worth of action, worthy of international collaboration, and so on. Just let's be accurate about our titles.

I'm lucky, I live in an area with high amount of post-glacial rebound (yea, thats a thing).

The land here is on average rising with 1 cm per year out of the ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound

Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#26
If you're interested in getting involved in addressing climate change, here are two options for citizens to get involved:

1) The Citizens Climate Climate Lobby has been around ten years, and it currently has a bill in Congress that has bipartisan (1 Republican) support: The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (http://energyinnovationact.org/). With this plan, all the revenue from a carbon tax* is directly returned to citizens as a yearly check--no enlargement of the state. This is the organization cofounded by NASA scientist James Hansen, who first testified to Congress about the perils of climate change over 30 years ago.

2) If you're a millennial/gen Z, and you're more skeptical of a market-based solution, the Green New Deal and Sunrise Movement are making waves. Rather than a concrete policy in Congress, they have a set of principles/values that they are pushing forward. This includes economic and social justice issues.

*Carbon pricing (which can come in the form of a tax or cap and trade) is the single most effective mechanism to address climate change. The idea is to internalize the _real_ costs of climate change into the price we actually pay--ramping up the price on carbon over time until it is prohibitively expensive to use fossil-fuel-expensive products, and incentivizing the economy to adapt. That fundamental price signal, where renewable energy becomes cheaper relative to fossil fuels (and similarly less fossil fuel-intensive goods are cheaper relative to fossil-fuel-expensive ones) reverberates throughout the economy. However, it's worth noting that while this solution should theoretically appeal to Republicans, almost none have stepped forward...

Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#27
post #15

To be clear, the 2m increase is the analyzed 95th percentile (very high end) of the estimates of this meta-study, when you take both glacial melt and glacial expansion. The median values for low and high estimates are 69cm and 110cm. Not that this isn't still terrifying, worth of action, worthy of international collaboration, and so on. Just let's be accurate about our titles.

Doesn’t Earth’s being a spinning oblong sphere mean some places will experience only minimal change while others will see significant change? So all this is “average” rise.

Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#29

So how much was the actual global sea-level rise in the past 10 years and how does it relate to previous estimates?

Maybe something like this?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm

I don't doubt humans are affecting the climate. I do doubt that humans can extrapolate the effects of what they are doing out into the future very well.

Re: Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment

#30
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no stationary orbit over the poles

I don't see the word "orbit" used at all, except by you. Sounds like you'd imagine a permanent eclipsing body is something that would employ an orbital insertion into earth orbit, which is your own assumption.

Please explain how you put "reflectors in space" without putting them into orbit.
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