London 'under water by 2100' as Antarctica crumbles into the sea

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A snarky "sky is falling" comment is inevitable in a thread like this so I might as well pre-empt it, but it's a story worth posting anyway.

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DOZENS of the world’s cities, including London and New York, could be flooded by the end of the century, according to research which suggests that global warming will increase sea levels more rapidly than was previously thought.
The first study to combine computer models of rising temperatures with records of the ancient climate has indicated that sea levels could rise by up to 20ft (6m) by 2100, placing millions of people at risk.

The threat comes from melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which scientists behind the research now believe are on track to release vast volumes of water significantly more quickly than older models have predicted. Their analysis of events between 129,000 and 116,000 years ago, when the Arctic last warmed to temperatures forecast for 2100, shows that there could be large rises in sea level.


 
While the Greenland ice sheet is expected to start melting as summer temperatures in the Arctic rise by 3C degrees to 5C (5.4F-9F), most models suggest that the ice sheets of Antarctica will remain more stable.

The historical data, however, show that the last time that Greenland became this warm, the sea level rise generated by meltwater destabilised the Antarctic ice, leading to a much higher increase than can be explained by Arctic ice alone.

That means that the models of sea-level rise used to predict an increase of up to 3ft by 2100 may have significantly underestimated its ultimate extent, which could be as great as 20ft.

Such a rise would threaten cities such as London, New York, Bombay and Tokyo. Large parts of the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Florida would be inundated, and even smaller rises would flood extreme low-lying areas, such as several Pacific islands and New Orleans.

“Although the focus of our work is polar, the implications are global,” said Bette Otto-Bliesner, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study. “These ice sheets melted before and sea levels rose. The warmth needed isn’t that much above present conditions.”

Her colleague, Jonathan Overpeck, of the University of Arizona, said: “This is a real eye-opener set of results. The last time the Arctic was significantly warmer than the present day, the Greenland ice sheet melted back the equivalent of two to three metres (6ft-10ft) of sea level. Contrary to what was previously believed, the research suggests the Antarctic ice sheet also melted substantially, contributing another 6ft to 10ft of sea level rise.”

The findings, which are published today in the journal Science, have emerged from a study that used data from ancient coral reefs, ice cores and other natural records to reconstruct the climate during the last gap between Ice Ages. In this interglacial period, between 129,000 and 116,000 years ago, temperatures in the Arctic were between 3C and 5C above present levels — a similar level to that predicted for the end of this century.

The scientists found that meltwater from Greenland raised the sea level by up to 11ft, but coral records showed that the total global rise was between 13ft and 20ft. Dr Overpeck said that the melting of Antarctic ice sheets was the most likely explanation. As sea levels rose, the floating ice shelves off the coast of the continent would have become more likely to break up. That in turn would have allowed glaciers to dump more ice from the continent itself into the sea.

He said that this was particularly worrying at present as the base of the West Antarctic ice sheet lay below sea level, which would allow ice to escape to the sea easily.

Several recent studies have indicated that the Greenland ice sheet, which contains enough water to raise sea levels by 23ft, and the West Antarctic sheet, which holds enough for a 20ft rise, are thinning. Both are expected to take several centuries to melt completely, but could release substantial quantities of water by 2100.

Dr Overpeck said that the results added to the urgency of measures to control the greenhouse gas emissions contributing to global warming.

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Key word in the article is COULD. Honestly, anything could happen. Tomorrow, Iraq COULD become a shining beacon of peace and democracy in the Mideast. It's just not all that likely.

The point is that there is reason to believe this will happen.

I love junk science!

And?

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The point is that there is reason to believe this will happen.

Don't be silly. There is perhaps reason to believe that there is a chance that this will happen, just as there is a reason to believe that several other things might happen.

So?

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Source? It seems like your memory is a bit convoluted. If you can't even remember the year I wouldn't put too much credit into it.

I love junk science!

And?

And the chance of Al Gore being the next POTUS is more likely then this scenario.

That is your unsubstantiated opinion, to which you are entitled, just as you are entitled to any opinion, as long as you admit you have no evidence for it.

Another doom & gloom prediction by scientists who, just a generation ago, were warning about an impending Ice Age. 

Of course, scientists don't have any credibility at all. Politicians and priests have contributed much more to society!

I saw George Will pull out a quote from the 1975 NYT article referring to the possibility of glaciers rolling across the the northern US in the middle of the 21st Century.

And of course, George Will is an unbiased observer. We all know that George Will has no agenda. Let us all let George Will decide what to do for George Will only cares about scientific truth. He's far better than those opinion columnists

And as for the article you cite, I found it easily (WashPost Dec 23, 2004, A23), and it never cites "glaciers rolling across the the northern US in the middle of the 21st Century," which just shows an intellectual dishonesty on your part. I love the fact how not only did you try to portray George Will with equivalence of a professional scientific journal, you also dishonestly embellished and changed his quote to fit your own ends.

As for the rest of your post, its all based from your reading of wikipedia's article on sea levels. Which is fine, except that it doesn't address the Otto-Bliesner, Overpeck papers. Otto-Bliesner, Overpeck are well aware of the past data on sea levels, which is based on past data on climate. What you conveniently skipped over on wikipedia however is evidence that temperatures are rising much faster now than they were throughout most of the time period portrayed on your graphic. What Otto-Bliesner, Overpeck are concerned with is not historical extrapolation of 20th century trends, which is a logical fallacy, but estimations on how temperatures will affect sea levels based on examination of archeological data in combination with climate estimates to see what sea levels were at the last time that the climate temperature was 3-5C higher than it is today, the last interglacial period. Their projections do not apply to now but to where temperature is estimated to be within 100 years. And here is some more stuff to chew on from wikipedia:

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So?

There's a difference between saying that "there is a reason to believe that this will happen" and "there's a chance this might happen".

Uh, and both statements apply here.

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I wasn't very old at the time, although I do remember it quite clearly. I sometimes have trouble placing dates on my memories, even though (other than that) I have a very good memory. 

Anyways, I have in front of me now, a map based on a report by the old Department of the Enviroment called "The Potential effects of climate change in the United Kingdom". It basically shows areas that the Department thought likely to be flooded and turned into (back into in some cases) wetland and so on as a result of climate change. It shows areas at risk in black; those parts of London along the Thames are (suprise, suprise) in black.
It was published in 1991.
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That report seems to serve the purpose of laying out potential effects of climate change, rather than laying out predictions, so I don't see why they would have predictions of part of London being underwater by a specific date. I'm sure there's much more evidence now for actualization of climate change than there was in 1991, which is all the more reason to act.

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Do they? Only if you want them both to apply. Personally I tend to treat just about any report issued on climate change as not worth reading, as it's usually possible to guess what it'll say anyway.
I should note that I don't doubt that climate change is happening, or that human activity has made an impact on the climate (but I don't have much time for claims that *all* climate change is caused by human activity, or that *no* climate change is caused by human activity. Both strike me, and have always struck me, as being very arrogant). But I'm not really worried either; I wouldn't mind seeing the Fens come back for one thing. Coastlines are forever changing as are sea levels.
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I don't think anyone is trying to say that *all* climate change is caused by human activity. That would be insane. The point is that a growing body of already very extensive evidence shows that humans are contributing signifcantly to climate change, and these new papers suggest that the last time temperatures were 3-5C higher than they are today, the sea level was such that it would be enough to submerge cities like London. It is study, that is all. It posits some reasons why X might occur... it by no means says that X will definitely occur. But the evidence is there. In any case it is the most extreme of studies. Countless other studies with far more conservative assumptions have estimated trillions of dollars of economic losses due to rising temperatures due to energy costs, disease, lost coastline, desertification, etc..

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That's a straw man, though, since nobody says that. And environmentalism was hardly trendy in the late '90s... gas guzzling SUV's were.

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Well obviously I think that we need to take steps to move toward energy sources that put less CO2 into the atmosphere, not the draconian measures that detractors would like to portray any effort as being, but far more than we are doing now. For example, the Kyoto treaty as it stands now is unworkable because it does not include developing countries, but rather than simply scrapping the idea of international effort to reduce CO2 emissions altogether Bush should have pushed for an alternative treaty that also commits countries like China and India to limit their emissions. This is still the path that I think we need to pursue now. The world simply cannot support 2 billion more people trying to industrialize into the western standard of living. The system is already being damaged and the consequences will be very negative if no foresight is taken.