While GOP nutcases like Rep. John Shimkus - assuming they even admit that global warming is occurring - want to take the "Don't worry, God will save us from global warming" approach (see the video at the end of this post), serious scientists are finding increasingly troubling evidence that polar ice melts will mean serious problems for many as sea levels rise - e.g., the boyfriend and I living on a tidal creek connecting to Hampton Roads harbor. The New York Times has an article that ought to get people's attention. While some of the most dire possibilities are many years out, waiting until there are catastrophic problems makes no sense and loons like Shimkus (and Virginia AG, Ken Kookinelli" Cuccinelli) need to get their heads out of their ass and, better yet, get out of public office. As this Virginian Pilot article demonstrates, we are already losing land and have been for years and complete islands in the Chesapeake Bay have already disappeared. Here are highlights from the Times story:*
Scientists long believed that the collapse of the gigantic ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years, with sea level possibly rising as little as seven inches in this century, about the same amount as in the 20th century. But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica.
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As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 — an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over. And the calculations suggest that the rise could conceivably exceed six feet, which would put thousands of square miles of the American coastline under water and would probably displace tens of millions of people in Asia.
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In the United States, parts of the East Coast and Gulf Coast would be hit hard. In New York, coastal flooding could become routine, with large parts of Queens and Brooklyn especially vulnerable. About 15 percent of the urbanized land in the Miami region could be inundated. The ocean could encroach more than a mile inland in parts of North Carolina. Abroad, some of the world’s great cities — London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai among them — would be critically endangered by a three-foot rise in the sea.
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One of the deans of American coastal studies, Orrin H. Pilkey of Duke University, is advising coastal communities to plan for a rise of at least five feet by 2100. “I think we need immediately to begin thinking about our coastal cities — how are we going to protect them?” said John A. Church, an Australian scientist who is a leading expert on sea level. “We can’t afford to protect everything. We will have to abandon some areas.”
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Calculations about the effect of a three-foot increase suggest that it would cause shoreline erosion to accelerate markedly. In places that once flooded only in a large hurricane, the higher sea would mean that a routine storm could do the trick. In the United States, an estimated 5,000 square miles of dry land and 15,000 square miles of wetlands would be at risk of permanent inundation, though the actual effect would depend on how much money was spent protecting the shoreline.
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Defenses can be built to keep out the sea, of course, like the levees of the New Orleans region and the famed dikes of the Netherlands. But the expense is likely to soar as the ocean rises, and such defenses are not foolproof, as Hurricane Katrina proved.
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“The past clearly shows that sea-level rise is getting faster and faster the warmer it gets,” Dr. Rahmstorf said. “Why should that process stop? If it gets warmer, ice will melt faster.”
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