Rising oceans

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Rising oceans

Postby argothor » Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:02 pm

So as climate change warms the planet and raises the level of the oceans, as some scientists have suggested that they will rise by 30' by the end of this century, do I make sure that I summit Wilson and Pyramid Peaks now so that I can claim those 14ers while they are still 14ers, or do I ignore them knowing that they won't be 14ers too much longer. :?
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Re: Rising oceans

Postby JoeGrim » Wed Jun 14, 2017 2:05 pm

At the current long-term global average rate of sea level rise (3.5 mm/yr = 0.011 ft/yr) https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/, both summits will still be 14ers for over 1500 years. If you look at the NASA link I provided, you can see that there is currently no acceleration in sea level rise. The only localized places where sea level rise is accelerating is where the ground is subsiding, in addition to the steady rate of sea level rise (e.g., New Orleans.) The only other "place" we find accelerating sea level rise is in climate models of the future, and it's only the most extreme climate models that predict 30 feet sea level rise by 2100, and this only happens if an enormous ice shelf collapses, for which there is no observational evidence that this is in the process of happening. Unfortunately, the media mostly reports only the most extreme claims by the most fringe scientists. Sadly, these over-the-top claims are amplified by politicians, media figures, and social media; this has in turn hurt the credibility of scientists in general, most of whom never make or believe such extreme claims. Yes, there is a strong consensus among us climate scientists that the long-term global temperature trend is increasing, and that human greenhouse gas emissions contribute to the temperature increase, but there is still vigorous debate as to the extent we are causing global warming. For example, in a recent poll of members of the American Meteorological Society (the largest professional meteorological society in the U.S.), only 52% of members believe that humans are responsible for most of global warming http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00091.1. In case you're wondering about my credentials, I am a research meteorologist with a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science.
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