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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #450 on: October 23, 2015, 09:41:48 PM »
SH @#449: 

Yes, but... I think you overlook the Time factor.

Cities will be destroyed at different times, at different rates, and for different reasons.  After a few such catastrophes, insurance companies and banks will rewrite their risk coverage requirements, denying coverage or loans unless vital infrastructure needs are addressed.*

There will be hard-hit areas as risks are adjusted and housing is abandoned, but it's difficult to imagine the crisis would hit planet-wide, all at once.


*Insurance co. sues Will County, 12 towns over flood damage
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-29/news/ct-flooding-lawsuit-bolingbrook-plainfield-tl-0501-20140429_1_will-county-flood-damage-lawsuit

Rise in government insurance rates to mirror rising waters, flood debt
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rise-in-government-insurance-rates-to-mirror-rising-waters-flood-debt/2015/03/28/8f9f17c6-d316-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html
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ritter

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #451 on: October 23, 2015, 10:22:52 PM »
SH @#449: 

Yes, but... I think you overlook the Time factor.

Cities will be destroyed at different times, at different rates, and for different reasons.  After a few such catastrophes, insurance companies and banks will rewrite their risk coverage requirements, denying coverage or loans unless vital infrastructure needs are addressed.*

There will be hard-hit areas as risks are adjusted and housing is abandoned, but it's difficult to imagine the crisis would hit planet-wide, all at once.


*Insurance co. sues Will County, 12 towns over flood damage
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-29/news/ct-flooding-lawsuit-bolingbrook-plainfield-tl-0501-20140429_1_will-county-flood-damage-lawsuit

Rise in government insurance rates to mirror rising waters, flood debt
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rise-in-government-insurance-rates-to-mirror-rising-waters-flood-debt/2015/03/28/8f9f17c6-d316-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html

This all assumes that they can squeeze more blood from us turnips. Between health care insurance, auto insurance and other necessary insurances, year-over-year increases can only go so far before the mighty middle class can't support it anymore (Obamacare and the end of the automobile notwithstanding). Sure it won't hit everywhere at once. But it's already nibbling at our heals with an infrastructure in a pretty wretched state. It will be "interesting", to say the least.

Shared Humanity

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #452 on: October 24, 2015, 07:26:01 PM »
SH @#449: 

Yes, but... I think you overlook the Time factor.

Cities will be destroyed at different times, at different rates, and for different reasons.  After a few such catastrophes, insurance companies and banks will rewrite their risk coverage requirements, denying coverage or loans unless vital infrastructure needs are addressed.*

There will be hard-hit areas as risks are adjusted and housing is abandoned, but it's difficult to imagine the crisis would hit planet-wide, all at once.


*Insurance co. sues Will County, 12 towns over flood damage
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-04-29/news/ct-flooding-lawsuit-bolingbrook-plainfield-tl-0501-20140429_1_will-county-flood-damage-lawsuit

Rise in government insurance rates to mirror rising waters, flood debt
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/rise-in-government-insurance-rates-to-mirror-rising-waters-flood-debt/2015/03/28/8f9f17c6-d316-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html

The time it takes for Southeast Florida to become uninhabitable is irrelevant. During the collapse of  the housing bubble in 2007, no property became uninhabitable. The event was purely financial as the speculative construction industry, real estate investors, home owners trading up and the financial industry financing this run up in real estate prices suddenly all realized that the property they had invested in was horribly over valued. We still have not fully recovered and millions of  homeowners find themselves underwater (pun intended) on their mortgages.

Southeast Florida is experiencing just this kind of real estate bubble.

GeoffBeacon

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #453 on: October 24, 2015, 08:57:01 PM »
Care must be taken if we are to rebuild existing cities elswhere.

Currently,  providing the infrastructure to fit an extra person in a city creates about 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide. (e.g. building houses out of bricks and mortar, roads with concrete and tarmac and shops and offices with steel and concrete). And on a global scale the remaining carbon budget can be calculated as 115 tonnes CO2.

Clearly we must change the way we build. Wooden huts for everyone?

According to the Daily Mail they can be incredibly cheap!

Quote
Their house cost them less than $20,000 to make their home and they only pay $145 rent for the lot on which their shack and workshop stands.

No mortgages, no banking crisis.

A cheaper life would allow us to cut production. This is necessary to keep within the 2degC. ’

In an impressive interview Kevin Anderson says

Using the Kaya identity carbon emmissions can be modelled as economic production multiplied by the carbon intensity of production. I have seen little evidence that carbon intensity can be cut that quickly so we need "de-growth".

Green growth for economies as a whole is a fantasy.

Can the financial system cope wth de-growth?

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #454 on: October 24, 2015, 09:34:32 PM »


Can the financial system cope wth de-growth?

No.

The financial system which supports capitalism is absolutely dependent on an acceptable ROI which can only be attained when the economy grows. This is why capital investment collapses during severe recessions. Please keep in mind that the very definition of a recession is "degrowth". For us to enter into a new era of human civilization where degrowth is the long term norm (think perpetual recession), we will have to scrap capitalism as it is currently structured.

GeoffBeacon

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #455 on: October 25, 2015, 01:59:14 PM »
SH

I suppose "fiinancial system" was a rather loose term.

Why should "capitalism" fail if we

(1)tax the rich to reduce their pollution and
(2)give to the poor to stop them increasing theirs?


An international form of Hansen's Carbon Fee and Dividend would do that.

P.S. I looked up "de-growth" and found the Barcelona Declaration.  It's a bit wordy for me but does make some points. It ends
Quote
As the economy of wealthy parts of the world quietly contracts and our damage to the environment through new infrastructures and extraction activities is constrained, well-being will increase through public investments in low-cost social and relational goods.

Every new proposal generates several new objections and questions. We do not claim to have a recipe for the future, but we can no longer pretend that we can keep growing as if nothing has happened. The folly of growth has come to an end. The challenge now is how to transform, and the debate has just begun.

P.P.S. (A bit off-topic)
Who can take seriously someone from the soft sciences who references the second law of thermodynamics? e.g. the de-growth guru Nicholas_Georgescu-Roegen

Quote
The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, described by the Library Journal as "...a great seminal work that challenges economic analysis", is a wide-ranging technical and philosophical exposition which promotes the case that economic activity can not be adequately described without taking into account the implications of second law of thermodynamics

B/s or what?

P.P.S. Does "de-growth" need a separate thread?
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SteveMDFP

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #456 on: October 25, 2015, 06:13:12 PM »


Can the financial system cope wth de-growth?

No.

The financial system which supports capitalism is absolutely dependent on an acceptable ROI which can only be attained when the economy grows. This is why capital investment collapses during severe recessions. Please keep in mind that the very definition of a recession is "degrowth". For us to enter into a new era of human civilization where degrowth is the long term norm (think perpetual recession), we will have to scrap capitalism as it is currently structured.
I don't think this is true at all.  Capitalism as a system has proven to be a robust way of organizing wealth, income, and power.  That isn't necessarily good, but we're discussing facts and analysis, not values.
Many places and many times have shown negative economic growth and/or economic stagnation.  Capitalist structures have not dissolved under such circumstances.   Sure, capitalism seeks everywhere to maximize wealth and income, but that doesn't mean the *system* falls apart when wealth and income decline.
How can this be?  If you own massive wealth, and potential investments everywhere are losing money, you still put your money into the economy or else inflation will eat away at your wealth faster than losses in poor investments.  You keep on playing the game, even as wealth might decrease year after year.
Similarly, if you're a worker facing falling wages, you don't stop working and starve, you keep on working.
Growth is simply not a necessary element for capitalism to continue to dominate.

wili

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #457 on: October 25, 2015, 08:49:21 PM »
Geoff, good to see you still knocking around!

Pretty much all of economics as an academic discipline is based on misapplications of laws of physics. The earliest mathematically rigorous works on economics assumed that the laws of fluid dynamics (as they were understood at the time) could just be applied directly applied to money flow in an economy. Not only has this unsupported assumption never been reconsidered, the field of fluid dynamics itself soon moved beyond the model that the early economists relied on, but economics didn't even bother keeping up with the physics they were relying on.

So the field of economics is essentially an inappropriate application of a long-abandoned model of a sub-branch of physics.

(You are, of course, absolutely right about capitalism's reliance on growth. There may be an economic structure that can succeed with long-term de-growth and preserve a few elements of capitalism, but it will be fundamentally different from what most people think of as capitalism as they experience it today.)
« Last Edit: October 25, 2015, 09:09:00 PM by wili »
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GeoffBeacon

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #458 on: October 26, 2015, 10:20:45 AM »
wili

Thanks for your kind words.

I've not been away from the AF but mostly lurking.

Daily, this is my starting point for climate & related topics.
It is the most trustworthy, knowledgeable and up-to-date source I know.

Thanks to Neven.

P.S. I'll probably start a thread on de-growth.

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Neven

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #459 on: October 26, 2015, 11:05:40 AM »
Thanks, Geoff.
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GeoffBeacon

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #460 on: October 26, 2015, 05:29:23 PM »
I have started a new topic "Is de-growth necessary? Is it possible?" in "Policy and Solutions"
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #461 on: October 28, 2015, 02:46:55 PM »
Rising Seas Pose Growing Flood Threat
A bipartisan group in the U.S. is attempting to raise awareness of sea level rise risks
Quote
Blackouts from hurricanes will be more common

The UCS report includes maps of projected flooding affecting large power substations and power plants in five major metropolitan regions: the Delaware Valley, southeastern Virginia, the South Carolina Low Country, southeastern Florida, and the central Gulf Coast.

In one example, if a Category 3 hurricane were to hit Virginia’s Tidewater region, 15 of the 18 major substations in Norfolk and nine of the 11 major substations in Hampton would be at risk of flooding, the report said.

“Between now and 2050—well within the lifetime of major equipment being installed today—an additional 13 major substations could face flood waters five to 10 feet deep, and an additional three could be exposed to depths of 10 to 15 feet,” it says.

In all five regions, 68 power plants and 415 major substations could be flooded by a Category 3 hurricane today unless protective actions are taken, UCS said.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rising-seas-pose-growing-flood-threat/
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #462 on: October 31, 2015, 12:18:51 AM »
NOAA paper on "nuisance flooding" of the U.S. coast.
Quote
During the 2014 meteorological year (May 2014 – Apr 2015), the mid‐Atlantic coast was most impacted. Between Sandy Hook, NJ and Savannah, GA long‐term accelerating trends continued unabated with several locations reporting 20 or more days of flooding and an increase from 2013.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/2014%20State%20of%20Nuisance%20Tidal%20Flooding.pdf
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jai mitchell

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #463 on: October 31, 2015, 09:24:29 PM »
King Tide combined with Sea Level Rise associated with the slowdown of the AMOC (Gulf Stream Current) produces record tidal gauge levels rivaling hurricane storm surges.

http://www.islandpacket.com/news/weather/article41526504.html

Quote
Wheeler said the marina's staff is expecting the water level to again rise past the wharf wall Wednesday morning. High tide is at 9:48 a.m. Wednesday.

"It was pretty crazy," Wheeler said. "Usually when we get a full moon the water comes up to the edge of the wall but doesn't go over. Today it just kept coming."

Quote
"It was the biggest tide I've seen in 37 years here," he said. "It was crazy."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2015/10/29/are-flooding-and-crazy-king-tides-in-the-southeast-proof-of-climate-change/

Quote
Tuesday morning’s high tide in Charleston, S.C. peaked at over eight-and-a-half feet — that’s a foot-and-a-half more than was predicted for the so-called “king tide” or normally occurring highest tide of the year.

Quote
in Savannah, Georgia, the water level crested at 10.43 feet, just shy of the record of 10.87 feet set when Hurricane Nine made landfall there in 1947
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #464 on: November 09, 2015, 10:49:49 PM »
The linked Robert Scribbler article indicates that the combination of El Nino affects and King Tides will cause significant flooding this winter in US East Coast areas

http://robertscribbler.com/2015/11/06/the-frankentides-are-coming-us-east-coast-to-see-season-of-flooding-from-el-nino-sea-level-rise-this-winter/

Extract: "According to preliminary reports from NOAA, this Fall, Winter and Spring will likely bring an abnormal number of flooding tides to the US East Coast. These emperor and king tides are primarily driven by sea level rise — a knock on impact of human-forced warming. But during an El Nino year, as with this year, wind patterns along the East Coast tend to drive tides even higher. At El Nino times, lows tend to form off the US East Coast. These lows tend to generate a consistent northeasterly wind that pushes against the northward flow of the Gulf Stream. This action reduces the Gulf Stream’s ability to pull water away from our shores, and some of that water rebounds against the US East Coast."
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #465 on: November 12, 2015, 10:03:05 PM »
The attached Aviso plot of the sea level trend line through July 26 2016 indicates that sea level is trending higher than the trend line and by that date we had not yet reached peak El Nino conditions:

Date           Mean Sea Level (cm)
2015.463388 7.895294e-02
2015.490535 7.926799e-02
2015.517683 7.920715e-02
2015.544831 7.943782e-02
2015.571978 8.007446e-02
2015.599126 8.068274e-02
2015.626273 8.094006e-02
2015.653421 8.083496e-02
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Lennart van der Linde

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #466 on: November 13, 2015, 12:20:13 PM »
Good piece on Greenland, but also Antarctica, with Rignot, Joughin, Alley, Levermann and others:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-secrets-in-greenlands-ice-sheets.html?smid=fb-share

So will we have fast SLR, of very fast?

AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #467 on: November 13, 2015, 04:31:17 PM »
Good piece on Greenland, but also Antarctica, with Rignot, Joughin, Alley, Levermann and others:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-secrets-in-greenlands-ice-sheets.html?smid=fb-share

So will we have fast SLR, of very fast?

Rignot cites a lower bound SLR by 2100 of 1.2m and he is working harm to try to define an upper bound (but he believes that it will be less than Hansen's value of 5m).
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Neven

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #468 on: November 14, 2015, 06:16:50 PM »
Good piece on Greenland, but also Antarctica, with Rignot, Joughin, Alley, Levermann and others:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/magazine/the-secrets-in-greenlands-ice-sheets.html?smid=fb-share

So will we have fast SLR, of very fast?

Thanks, Lennart. Great article.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #469 on: November 15, 2015, 02:36:40 AM »
North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, U.S.

How coastal real estate is being impacted by climate change
Quote
Englander expects that within a decade, perhaps as early as five years from now, awareness of sea level impacts on coastal real estate will spook the marketplace. Insurance premiums will spike, making mortgages unattainable for some. Property values will plunge, along with local tax revenues, making it harder for communities to adapt to new realities.

“People think this is an environmental issue, but it’s not. It’s an economic issue,” he said. “The people who own lots of real estate and finance it, they haven’t really thought this through yet.”

Those that have are quietly selling, Englander added. “They don’t want to make noise because they want to protect their property values. They want to sell high before the market notices.”
http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/11/14/how-coastal-real-estate-is-being-impacted-by-climate-change.html
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Shared Humanity

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #470 on: November 16, 2015, 05:14:45 AM »
North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, U.S.

How coastal real estate is being impacted by climate change
Quote
Englander expects that within a decade, perhaps as early as five years from now, awareness of sea level impacts on coastal real estate will spook the marketplace. Insurance premiums will spike, making mortgages unattainable for some. Property values will plunge, along with local tax revenues, making it harder for communities to adapt to new realities.

“People think this is an environmental issue, but it’s not. It’s an economic issue,” he said. “The people who own lots of real estate and finance it, they haven’t really thought this through yet.”

Those that have are quietly selling, Englander added. “They don’t want to make noise because they want to protect their property values. They want to sell high before the market notices.”
http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/11/14/how-coastal-real-estate-is-being-impacted-by-climate-change.html

This has been my point all along. It will not take the actual destruction of coastal property to wreak havoc in our financial institutions as property values plummet.

wili

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #471 on: November 16, 2015, 04:38:21 PM »
Good point, as usual, SH. The question is: How long it will take for the panic to set in?
"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #472 on: November 16, 2015, 10:13:14 PM »
Egypt’s Nile River Delta Is Sinking Into the Sea
http://www.newsweek.com/egypts-nile-river-delta-sinking-sea-394268
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Shared Humanity

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #473 on: November 18, 2015, 05:14:13 AM »
Good point, as usual, SH. The question is: How long it will take for the panic to set in?

It's difficult to predict when a stampede will start but there will be no stopping it as emotions will take over. 

GeoffBeacon

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #474 on: November 22, 2015, 07:21:52 AM »
I have just found:

https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/news-story-sea-level-rise-from-antarctic-collapse/

Quote
Sea-level rise from Antarctic collapse may be slower than suggested

A new study by scientists in the UK and France has found that Antarctic ice sheet collapse will have serious consequences for sea level rise over the next two hundred years, though not as much as some have suggested.

This study, published this week in the journal Nature, uses an ice-sheet model to predict the consequences of unstable retreat of the ice, which recent studies suggest has begun in West Antarctica.

Via BBC podcast: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0380gs8

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solartim27

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #475 on: November 22, 2015, 08:05:41 AM »
FNORD

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #476 on: November 22, 2015, 01:15:24 PM »
I have just found:
https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/news-story-sea-level-rise-from-antarctic-collapse/
Previously discussed on another thread.  The et al on the authors gets muddled (It is a good interview though):

The other thread was the "Potential Collapse Scenario for the WAIS" thread in the Antarctica folder, and Lennart initiates the discussion in Reply #392.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #477 on: November 25, 2015, 01:10:49 AM »
California coastal flooding from King tides.

This week’s king tides bring danger of flooding, glimpse of future
http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/This-week-s-king-tides-bring-danger-of-6652913.php

Quote
@arasmusKTVU: .@Ca_king_tides warns this is what #SanFrancisco #Embarcadero will look like by 2100, w/sea level rise #kingtides [16-sec video:] https://t.co/ebQH03VeXF

https://twitter.com/arasmusktvu/status/669209179865788416

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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #478 on: November 25, 2015, 01:11:25 AM »
The New Miami Beach Leader Facing Rising Seas
http://wlrn.org/post/new-miami-beach-leader-facing-rising-seas
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #479 on: November 29, 2015, 04:28:25 PM »
From Portland, Maine:

Sea Change: Rising sea levels should be a wake-up call
Quote
Even in calm weather, king tides are becoming problematic. When seawater first began bubbling up from storm sewers and forming briny puddles, officials called it “nuisance flooding.” Sneering at that language from “Roget’s Denial Thesaurus,” Jon Stewart put forward a few synonyms of his own – like “moisture inconvenience” or simply a “surprise pool party!”

Humor can help us contend with the sobering prognosis scientists now offer.
http://www.pressherald.com/2015/11/29/sea-change-rising-sea-levels-should-be-a-wake-up-call/
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #480 on: December 05, 2015, 07:41:16 PM »
Sea level gauges at San Diego, La Jolla, and Santa Barbara recorded the highest levels ever recorded to date at those stations. San Diego had flooding several miles inland as sea water surged into storm drains. Looks like we can add SanDiego to the list of U.S. cities with problems coming near term from sea level rise.

http://storms.ca.gov/docs/Record-Breaking-Sea-Levels-California.PDF

solartim27

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #481 on: December 05, 2015, 08:52:52 PM »
The San Diego flooding was several miles from the ocean, but only 1/2 mile from the bay, in one of the lowest areas of the city.  I was astonished at the height while walking over by the bay at the previous high tide.  Swam a mile last Wednesday, the water is chilly, but don't need a wetsuit yet, which is quite unusual, at least for me.
Sea level gauges at San Diego, La Jolla, and Santa Barbara recorded the highest levels ever recorded to date at those stations. San Diego had flooding several miles inland as sea water surged into storm drains. Looks like we can add SanDiego to the list of U.S. cities with problems coming near term from sea level rise.
FNORD

bligh8

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #482 on: December 06, 2015, 07:40:27 AM »
Residents resist tidal flooding, an increasing threat to the Jersey Shore.

Within the linked article there is a nice graph showing the increase in frequency
and degree of flooding.

On a personal note, friends of mine sold their lovely home in Bridgewater, NJ
To build their retirement home (very nice and expensive home) at the shore,
with a bulkhead 12inches above high tide. No matter what I said I could not dissuade
them from their pursuits.


http://www.app.com/story/news/local/land-environment/enviroguy/2015/11/24/residents-resist-tidal-flooding-increasing-threat-jersey-shore/75893620/

oren

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #483 on: December 06, 2015, 10:05:02 AM »
Residents resist tidal flooding, an increasing threat to the Jersey Shore.

Within the linked article there is a nice graph showing the increase in frequency
and degree of flooding.

On a personal note, friends of mine sold their lovely home in Bridgewater, NJ
To build their retirement home (very nice and expensive home) at the shore,
with a bulkhead 12inches above high tide. No matter what I said I could not dissuade
them from their pursuits.


http://www.app.com/story/news/local/land-environment/enviroguy/2015/11/24/residents-resist-tidal-flooding-increasing-threat-jersey-shore/75893620/

That's a very good chart.

Bruce Steele

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #484 on: December 07, 2015, 12:22:37 AM »
The Calif. King Tides expected for Jan. 21+22 might coincide with some El Nino rains , storm surge etc. Those of you on the U.S. West Coast might mark your calendars for a day at the beach !
There are several organized hikes for those days. If we do get some decent rains beforehand and a storm to push in some storm tides it should get interesting.

http://california.kingtides.net/

Bring your galoshes or knee waders.

Laurent

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #485 on: December 10, 2015, 02:18:11 PM »
People told to stay indoors as Cumbrian village floods for second time
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/10/people-told-to-stay-indoors-as-cumbrian-village-floods-for-second-time
Quote
Police have urged people to stay indoors after a Cumbrian village was flooded for the second time within a few days. The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, a local MP, said the government must learn that flooding is likely to become more frequent.

sidd

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #486 on: December 12, 2015, 10:50:08 PM »
Paleo evidence might guide our expectations for SLR. The picture is grim. I refer to three papers

1)Rohling(2007) doi:10.1038/ngeo.2007.28
2)Blanchon(2009) doi:10.1038/nature07933
3)Lambeck(2014) doi:10.1073/pnas.1411762111

Blanchon(2009) has a nice graf of SLR over the last 20 kyr in the supplementary which i attach.
I also attach two other grafs, one from each paper showing rates of SLR over the latest deglaciation and in the Eemian. The latter is a couple degrees warmer than the Holocene and might be an analog for the Anthropocene.  The jumps in sea level are episodic, the rates of rise jump to their maxima on century scale, if not faster. Sea level doesnt rise as an exponential would, with the greatest rises at the end; rather it goes in fits and starts, with SLR rates flickering between lows and highs over a couple orders of magnitude. This leads to far more damage early than the backloaded exponential would have you believe, and amplifies discounted damage costs, since discounting trivializes damages further in the future.


bligh8

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #487 on: December 14, 2015, 12:05:47 PM »
Thanks Sidd for adding clarity to the scenario of  SLR.
This makes sense as new mechanisms are added to a fragile situation
leading to acceleration in ice failure dynamics, as in when the January
zero degree isotherm moves across the broad area of the WAIS one could
add rain and hydro fracture as a new mechanism in that area, the results
would be as you described.

Fair Winds
Bligh

AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #488 on: December 23, 2015, 12:21:13 AM »
The attached NASA image of the Jason-2 Satellite Sea Level Residual for Dec 6 2015, shows that the current Super El Nino has raised sea level from the Eastern Equatorial region northward to the Southern tip of Baja California.  This raises the prospect that a northward traveling kelvin wave might reach California in time to reinforce the King Tides in late January 2016; which (if this scenario were to occur) would cause extensive local coastal flooding:
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #489 on: December 23, 2015, 05:41:24 AM »
As I've heard deniers blaming El Nino, I would just like to add the comparison between SLR and MEI just to point out that it's not just ENSO. Picture attached.

None of the regulars in this thread needs the links, but I'll provide them for those who need them.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
http://www.aviso.altimetry.fr/en/home.html

New video from Aviso.



AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #490 on: December 23, 2015, 05:10:36 PM »
As I've heard deniers blaming El Nino, I would just like to add the comparison between SLR and MEI just to point out that it's not just ENSO.

Sleepy,
I am invariably impressed by the high-quality of your posts (which are based on sound facts & research). 

I concur that the relatively low current MEI values show that the atmosphere is providing relatively low forcing to move WWV in order to create the highest recorded Nino 3.4 values (see the attached image of Nino 3.4 vs the Warm Water Volume, WWV, transferred from the Eastern Eq. Pac. to the Western Eq. Pac); which indicates that our current high sea levels are due to a combination of moderate El Nino forcing and an increasing trend for climate change.

Many denialist, and many Pollyannas, fail to see that high Nino 3.4 values can act as a chaotic strange attractor to ratchet up many positive feedback mechanisms that will result in both higher global mean temperatures and higher Nino 3.4 temperatures.  A short list of such Nino 3.4 stimulated positive feedback mechanisms include:
- Stress on the Amazon Rainforest due to accelerated drought and wildfires.
- Increased probability of positive PDO values for years to come.
- Increased wildfires in many critical areas around the world including Indonesia.
- A reduction in low cloud cover and an increase in high cloud cover in the critical tropical belt.
- Accelerated ice mass loss from key WAIS marine glaciers.
- Warming of Alaska & Canada resulting in reduced local snow cover and reduced albedo.
- Etc.

Very Best,
ASLR
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #491 on: December 24, 2015, 06:44:37 AM »
ASLR,
Thank you for you kind comment. I don't know about the quality of my posts, just trying to read and understand. I've had enough of people saying, -"ah, we've had mild winters in the past. Noone knows what the weather or the climate will do tomorrow." I heard that again this week.

Sure we know. We have known for a long, long time. Longer than I have lived, we should at least have started to listen in the eighties. I didn't.

But some things never change. Like those Donalds all over the planet, who like to decide what we should do or think. Those who have had the means to really make a difference and chose not to, they disturb me. But apart from my personal life, I can't do anything more than read. Lending a Danish sentence; Hvad gør vi nu lille du?

Therefore I'll end my little OT this Christmas Eve morning with Gasolin' and a quote from the lyrics at the end, they never made it in the states.


Men så en dag gik jeg op til ministeren og sagde:
 Du der - få lige fødderne ned og ta' hatten af!
 Mand kan du ikke se at det hele er ved at gå
 fuldstændig agurk?!

 Så hvad gør vi nu din gamle skurk?

 Men han grinte bare og sagde:
 Dig, du kan sgu gå fanden i vold!
 Så det gør vi nu, lille du.
 Ja, vi gør!


That doesn't translate well. But I think you get the picture.
The social cost of carbon will be higher than today, thanks to those Donalds.

Merry Christmas.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #492 on: December 27, 2015, 07:21:55 PM »
The linked article discusses how the climate change induced melting of glaciers is slightly slowing the Earth's rotation and is increasing "polar wander".  You can expect this effect to increase with continues sea level rise due to ice sheet mass loss with continued global warming:

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/glacial-melt-slowing-of-earths-rotation-19843

Extract: "The driving force behind the modest but discernible changes in the Earth's rotation measured by satellites and astronomical methods is a global sea level rise fueled by an influx of meltwater into the oceans from glaciers, the researchers said.
"Because glaciers are at high latitudes, when they melt they redistribute water from these high latitudes towards lower latitudes, and like a figure skater who moves his or her arms away from their body, this acts to slow the rotation rate of the Earth," Harvard University geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica said.
The movement of ice and meltwater is also causing a slight migration of the Earth's axis, or north pole, in a phenomenon known as "polar wander," the researchers said.
"Imagine a figure skater who doesn't stick their arms straight out but rather sticks one at one angle and the other out at another angle. The figure skater will begin to wobble back and forth. This is the same thing as polar motion," Mitrovica said.
The research looked at the changes in the planet's rotation and axis in light of the world's sea level rise in the 20th century as a result of increasing global temperatures."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #493 on: December 30, 2015, 07:26:46 PM »
The linked reference concludes that using current information and techniques it is impossible to rule-out a significant Antarctic contribution to Meltwater Pulse 1A (when sea levels rose approximately 4m per century).  While denialists may try to spin this to say that as we are not 95% certain that Antarctic marine glacial are unstable that we should assume that they are stable; however, I believe that such thinking is foolish, and that this analysis supports the idea that it is plausible that Antarctic marine glaciers could make a multi-meter contribution to SLR this century:

Jean Liu, Glenn A. Milne, Robert E. Kopp, Peter U. Clark & Ian Shennan (2015), "Sea-level constraints on the amplitude and source distribution of Meltwater Pulse 1A", Nature Geoscience, doi:10.1038/ngeo2616


http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2616.html


Abstract: "During the last deglaciation, sea levels rose as ice sheets retreated. This climate transition was punctuated by periods of more intense melting; the largest and most rapid of these—Meltwater Pulse 1A—occurred about 14,500 years ago, with rates of sea-level rise reaching approximately 4 m per century. Such rates of rise suggest ice-sheet instability, but the meltwater sources are poorly constrained, thus limiting our understanding of the causes and impacts of the event. In particular, geophysical modelling studies constrained by tropical sea-level records suggest an Antarctic contribution of more than seven metres, whereas most reconstructions from Antarctica indicate no substantial change in ice-sheet volume around the time of Meltwater Pulse 1A. Here we use a glacial isostatic adjustment model to reinterpret tropical sea-level reconstructions from Barbados, the Sunda Shelf and Tahiti. According to our results, global mean sea-level rise during Meltwater Pulse 1A was between 8.6 and 14.6 m (95% probability). As for the melt partitioning, we find an allowable contribution from Antarctica of either 4.1 to 10.0 m or 0 to 6.9 m (95% probability), using two recent estimates of the contribution from the North American ice sheets. We conclude that with current geologic constraints, the method applied here is unable to support or refute the possibility of a significant Antarctic contribution to Meltwater Pulse 1A."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #494 on: January 05, 2016, 04:38:48 PM »
While this has already been discussed in the Greenland folder, it should be noted here that the firn in Greenland (and by extension in Antarctica) will hold less water than previously expected, so sea level rise will occur faster than previously expected:

Horst Machguth, Mike MacFerrin, Dirk van As, Jason E. Box, Charalampos Charalampidis, William Colgan, Robert S. Fausto, Harro A. J. Meijer, Ellen Mosley-Thompson & Roderik S. W. van de Wal (2016), "Greenland meltwater storage in firn limited by near-surface ice formation", Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2899


http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2899.html


Abstract: "Approximately half of Greenland’s current annual mass loss is attributed to runoff from surface melt. At higher elevations, however, melt does not necessarily equal runoff, because meltwater can refreeze in the porous near-surface snow and firn. Two recent studies suggest that all or most of Greenland’s firn pore space is available for meltwater storage, making the firn an important buffer against contribution to sea level rise for decades to come3. Here, we employ in situ observations and historical legacy data to demonstrate that surface runoff begins to dominate over meltwater storage well before firn pore space has been completely filled. Our observations frame the recent exceptional melt summers in 2010 and 2012, revealing significant changes in firn structure at different elevations caused by successive intensive melt events. In the upper regions (more than ~1,900 m above sea level), firn has undergone substantial densification, while at lower elevations, where melt is most abundant, porous firn has lost most of its capability to retain meltwater. Here, the formation of near-surface ice layers renders deep pore space difficult to access, forcing meltwater to enter an efficient surface discharge system and intensifying ice sheet mass loss earlier than previously suggested."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #495 on: January 05, 2016, 06:24:12 PM »
Sea level rise, and decreasing availability of cool fresh water, also serve to make traditional fossil fuel and nuclear power plants obsolete.

Research out today maps where power plants around the world are most at risk from higher water temperatures and decreased water availability.
http://www.carbonbrief.org/map-where-climate-change-could-hit-electricity-production
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #496 on: February 04, 2016, 09:33:55 AM »


You can compare the attached Aviso plot of the sea level trend line through Oct 26 2015 to that shown in Reply #465 for July 26 2016. This indicates that sea level is trending high enough to change the slope of the trend line from 3.32 to 3.34mm/yr:

Date           Mean Sea Level (cm)
2015.599126 8.058987e-02
2015.626273 8.136587e-02
2015.653421 8.172501e-02
2015.680568 8.182677e-02
2015.707716 8.217352e-02
2015.734863 8.297785e-02
2015.762011 8.389317e-02
2015.789159 8.456793e-02
2015.816306 8.498810e-02
2015.843454 8.527852e-02
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #497 on: February 05, 2016, 08:35:38 PM »
Scribbler has a discussion on the rapid acceleration of SLR from 2009 to October 2015 (at a rate of 5 mm/yr):

http://robertscribbler.com/2016/02/04/rapid-acceleration-in-sea-level-rise-from-2009-through-october-2015-global-oceans-have-risen-by-5-millimeters-per-year/

Extract: "Rapid Acceleration in Sea Level Rise — From 2009 Through October 2015, Global Oceans Have Risen by 5 Millimeters Per Year."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
― Leon C. Megginson

sidd

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #498 on: February 05, 2016, 10:14:45 PM »
Rietbroek(2016)  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1519132113 discusses sea level budget closure. The figure for total SLR in the period 2002-2014 is 2.74 +/- 0.58 mm/yr. This is at the outer edge of the error bar for compatibility with AVISO or other satellite derived trends. More interestingly, the steric rise is found to be 1.38 +/- 0.16 mm/yr, much larger than previous estimates. They note:

"Another possibility is that the inversion scheme used here significantly underestimates the combined mass losses from the major ice sheets, glaciers, and hydrology. This leads to the larger steric trend, because the closure of the sea-level budget is respected in the inversion."

But they go on to note that their land ice mass waste trend "is consistent with published estimates of
mass loss in the ice sheets, glaciers, and hydrology."

They find a significant acceleration of GRIS mass waste.

Nice paper, but i imagine it is not the last word. I see that it was edited by Cazenave, who is a very sharp cookie. Don't miss the supplementaries.

sidd

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Re: Sea Level Rise and Social Cost of Carbon
« Reply #499 on: February 07, 2016, 07:19:47 PM »
NASA study: glaciers outside of Greenland and Antarctica contributed one-third of the sea level rise during their study period -- matching the contribution from Greenland and Antarctica.

NASA Satellite Data Helps Pinpoint Glaciers' Role in Sea Level Rise
Quote
A new study of glaciers worldwide using observations from two NASA satellites has helped resolve differences in estimates of how fast glaciers are disappearing and contributing to sea level rise.

The new research found glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, repositories of 1 percent of all land ice, lost an average of 571 trillion pounds (259 trillion kilograms) of mass every year during the six-year study period, making the oceans rise 0.03 inches (0.7 mm) per year. This is equal to about 30 percent of the total observed global sea level rise during the same period and matches the combined contribution to sea level from the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/glacier-sea-rise.html
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