Studies: Sea-level might rise 25 inches or more

David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post writes:

Three studies this year, including one out last month, have made newly worrisome forecasts about life along the Atlantic over the next century. While the rest of the world might see seven to 23 inches of sea-level rise by 2100, the studies show this region might get that and more — 17 to 25 inches more — for a total increase that would submerge a beach chair.

Of course these studies say might not will. The studies arise from computer models.

Researchers say rising seas are one of the most tangible consequences of a changing climate. They rise because they are warming, expanding in volume like a highway bridge on a summer day. And they rise because they are filling up, fed by melting ice.

“It doesn’t matter who’s causing global warming. Sea-level rise is something we can measure,” said Rob Young, a geosciences professor at Western Carolina University. “You can’t argue that sea level isn’t rising.”

Young certainly has a point. The argument over whether global warming is caused by man or nature may be irrelevant. Either way man has to do something. No one can control nature. But man can be controlled. To the extent the rising oceans can be at least slowed down by man, he’d best be getting with it.

But it isn’t just rising oceans one must be concerned about.

Another study last month found a threat from a Texas-size ice sheet in Antarctica. If it broke off and melted, the shift of mass from pole to ocean would change both Earth’s gravitational field and its rotation.

So far no one is predicting that Pahrump or Las Vegas will be underwater. But if the Earth starts rotating the opposite direction, look out!

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