Study: Warmer seas are rising faster and more along US East Coast than rest of the globe

[tawadi]

Source: Associated Press

Updated: Sunday, June 24, 1:21 PM

WASHINGTON — From Cape Hatteras, N.C., to just north of Boston, sea levels are rising much faster than they are around the globe, putting one of the world’s most costly coasts in danger of flooding, government researchers report.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists call the 600-mile swath a “hot spot” for climbing sea levels caused by global warming. Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three times to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

It’s not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway “jamming on the accelerator,” said the study’s lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950, and noticed a change beginning in 1990.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/study-warmer-seas-are-rising-faster-and-more-along-us-east-coast-than-rest-of-the-globe/2012/06/24/gJQATELozV_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

[wordpix]

1. time to stop building on the coasts! I do not want to bail these top 1%-ers out through FEMA

and the surge zone shouldn't have been built on in the first place.

[clang1]

3. Lol : Private Florida Island Is Sold for a Mere $258,000, Piña Coladas Not Included

Private Florida Island Is Sold for a Mere $258,000, Piña Coladas Not Included
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/us/private-florida-island-is-sold-for-a-mere-258000.html

On Thursday, a 1.4-acre patch of land on the Caloosahatchee River off Fort Myers, Fla., was gaveled away in an unusual Internet auction that featured the private island.

Gulf side, but hey.

[patrice]

15. Not to mention whatever TIF financing is involved that includes somekind of public obligation.

[patrice]

16. Nor whatever toxic Hedge Funds got involved in coastal real estate speculation. nt

[n2doc]

2. Faster than expected will be mankind's epitaph n/t

[CrispyQ]

10. That made me laugh. -nt

[Voice for Peace]

20. that should be a cartoon

one picture worth a thousand words kinda cartoon

[bupkus]

26. Not with a bang but a gurgle. nt

[Politicalboi]

4. Arrest the AP

According to the GOP, there are no rising seas. And as long as we keep saying it, they are jinxing it to happen. Make them stop, make them stop. LOL!

[caseymoz]

7. Some say that. Others say its happening but . . .

. . . it can't be us.

[Politicalboi]

9. That's right

Because some say our shit don't stink.

[caseymoz]

12. You see, they're being humble Christians.

Last edited Mon Jun 25, 2012, 01:15 AM - Edit history (1)

Of course we're not powerful enough to effect the whole earth so greatly. Only God can do that. It's a scientific principle. Like intelligent design.

Rush Limbaugh happens to be of this school of faithful denial. Somehow, I think it's blasphemous to make a gross scientific error a part of one's religious beliefs because one will sink with the other. Especially religious beliefs denying Global Warming, a skepticism which will soon prove to irrefutably wrong by everyday evidence, unlike evolution.

It's destined to bring more embarrassment on Monotheism.

[clang1]

8. So far as I know in the World

America is one of the few, if there are even any other countries, where climate change is denied like it is here. Glad for the downstream article the OP posted.

Scientific American, Scott Huler, May 2012
In a story first discussed by the NC Coastal Federation and given more play May 29 by the News & Observer of Raleigh and its sister paper the Charlotte Observer, a group of legislators from 20 coastal NC counties whose economies will be most affected by rising seas have legislated the words “Nuh-unh!” into the NC Constitution.

Pay now or later is all this is. I feel it does the residents there a disservice but I understand how these legislators are trying to protect their constituents. We are going about this all wrong.

Not that it means much but even China ratified Kyoto.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_China

The position of the Chinese government on climate change is contentious. China has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but as a non-Annex I country is not required to limit greenhouse gas emissions under terms of the agreement.
---
The United States backed out of Kyoto.

[Exultant Democracy]

31. The rest of the world is amazed that it is a controversy here.

In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is ridiculed and attacked, if the land happens to be America.

[marmar]

5. ........

[sad sally]

6. According to a Scientific America blog, N.C. has passed legislation that rising sea level is against

law. You bet - that will tell that old sea what to do. How stupid can these law makers be?
-------------------------------

In a story first discussed by the NC Coastal Federation and given more play May 29 by the News & Observer of Raleigh and its sister paper the Charlotte Observer, a group of legislators from 20 coastal NC counties whose economies will be most affected by rising seas have legislated the words “Nuh-unh!” into the NC Constitution.

Okay, cheap shot alert. Actually all they did was say science is crazy. There is virtually universal agreement among scientists that the sea will probably rise a good meter or more before the end of the century, wreaking havoc in low-lying coastal counties. So the members of the developers’ lobbying group NC-20 say the sea will rise only 8 inches, because … because … well, SHUT UP, that’s because why.

That is, the meter or so of sea level rise predicted for the NC Coastal Resources Commission by a state-appointed board of scientists is extremely inconvenient for counties along the coast. So the NC-20 types have decided that we can escape sea level rise – in North Carolina, anyhow – by making it against the law. Or making MEASURING it against the law, anyhow.

Here’s a link to the circulated Replacement House Bill 819. The key language is in section 2, paragraph e, talking about rates of sea level rise: “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly. …” It goes on, but there’s the core: North Carolina legislators have decided that the way to make exponential increases in sea level rise – caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists – go away is to make it against the law to extrapolate exponential; we can only extrapolate along a line predicted by previous sea level rises.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Berkeley Ca was ruled to be a "Nuclear Free Zone"

quite awhile back.
That seems to worked, so far.

[Duppers]

28. same in Virginia

http://www.care2.com/causes/va-scientists-banned-from-saying-sea-level-rise.html

[dipsydoodle]

13. Maybe not using so much oil in the USA

for the past 60 years would help.

[patrice]

14. Rick Scott, "That's why $$$$$$oylent Green IS people. Bailouts for skyscrapers. Austerity for

Florida's old folks."

[madrchsod]

17. flip the conveyor sooner than later?

stock up on warm clothes or land in south america

[DeSwiss]

18. And they're going to get much higher.

- Very soon.

[dipsydoodle]

19. Despite that

you still want to consume oil for less.

From a few hours ago in LBN : http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014151412

[clang1]

21. They be addicted... that and everyone is broke :-( n/t

[DFW]

22. Hell, I could have told you that from first hand observation 2 years ago

Every year, my family and I go back to States for a couple of weeks on the outer part of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

There is a stretch if beach on the Bay side where one used to be able to walk for miles uninterrupted. Since 2010, a part of the beach near the house we rent is impassable at high tide. The water now goes nearly up to our knees and we have to time our walks on the beach now to avoid high tide. At low tide, there is plenty of beach to stroll on. At high tide, since 2010, there IS no more beach. The water goes right up to the dunes.

[clang1]

23. Interesting. Thanks

How many years?

Amazingly enough NBC has something on now about beach erosion on the east coast.

[dipsydoodle]

24. On the other hand

there are dead coral reefs 200 yards inland on the Atlantic coast in Cuba down at Guadalavaca.

[clang1]

25. Lol n/t

[dipsydoodle]

27. I didn't make that up

When I was down that end of the island Oct '2010 I pal'd up with two Russians. They discovered the reefs on one of their walking trips. Good guys - they found a village, bought a pig and threw a pig roast party for the village two days later. They supplied all the booze too.

[highplainsdem]

29. They could have found dead coral that washed ashore. This review of a nearby beach

from early 2010, which I found at Tripadvisor.com, refers to dead coral washed ashore then at Playa Esmeralda:

http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g910832-d256423-r60176443-Sol_Rio_de_Luna_y_Mares-Guardalavaca_Holguin_Province_Cuba.html

Beach---Playa Esmeralda is by far one to the nicest beaches anywhere. Plenty of Palapas, coconut palms and bushes for shade. Close to one kilometer long with fantastic snorkling just off shore, at the eastern side. The waves can be tricky when it's windy, the depth hits more than 6 feet just off shore, so parents with YOUNG children should be attentive to there whereabouts. Unfortunately the coral reef offshore is dying, suffering the effects of global warming and pieces of dead coral are washing ashore.

[dipsydoodle]

30. This wasn't pieces

it was a whole reef.