Sea Level

By Hannah Cloke | – Climate change, it’s fair to say, is complicated. And it’s big. One of the main challenges of responding effectively is simply getting your head around the scale of the problem. This is not unique in the study of the physical world, of course. Scientists and economists spend a lot of […]

Climate Crisis

Why Burning Fossil Fuels is to Today’s Pandemics as Fleas were to the Black Death

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sheri Fink at the NYT reports that Center for Disease Control scientific modeler Matthew Biggerstaff estimated in a conference call that the coronavirus pandemic could last for many months or as long as a year and could infect half to two-thirds of the population of the United States. Between 200,000 […]

Climate Crisis

Ancient Antarctic ice melt caused extreme sea level rise 129,000 years ago – and it could happen again

The Conversation

By Chris Fogwill, Chris Turney, and Zoë Thomas | – Rising global temperatures and warming ocean waters are causing one of the world’s coldest places to melt. While we know that human activity is causing climate change and driving rapid changes in Antarctica, the potential impacts that a warmer world would have on this region […]

Bangladesh

Rich v. Poor: New York faces Climate Crisis, But Bangladesh Faces Climate Apocalypse

The Conversation

By Saleh Ahmed | – Unpredictable weather and climate patterns recently prompted New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to proclaim in January 2020 that “Apocalypse will become the new normal.” Extreme storms, tides and other awful surprises the world has experienced in recent years suggest that Krugman could be right. July 2019 registered the hottest […]

Climate Crisis

It is 65° F. in Antarctica and if the Thwaites Glacier Plops in, Expect 4 ft. of Sea Level Rise

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Argentinean Esperanza research station in Antarctica — the South Pole — recorded a temperature of nearly 65° F. (18° C.) this week, a historic record. A single temperature record like this one is weather, and by itself would not prove much. Unfortunately, it was not a fluke. It is […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis: It isn’t just Sea Level Rise, it is the Coastal Floods it Brings

The Conversation

By James Renwick | – I saw an article claiming that “king tides” will increase in frequency as sea level rises. I am sceptical. What is the physics behind such a claim and how is it related to climate change? My understanding is that a king tide is a purely tidal effect, related to Moon, […]

Climate Crisis

If Global Heating Exceeds 3.6° F., Antarctica’s Melt could Raise Seas 60 Feet over Time

The Conversation

By Georgia Rose Grant and Timothy Naish | – We know that our planet has experienced warmer periods in the past, during the Pliocene geological epoch around three million years ago. Our research, published today, shows that up to one third of Antarctica’s ice sheet melted during this period, causing sea levels to rise by […]

Climate Crisis

The Carbon Dioxide Horror Show: Sea Level threat to Coastal Cities triples in New Study

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Scott A. Kulp and Benjamin H. Strauss have published an extremely alarming set of conclusions in Nature in which they recalculated the likely impact of sea level rise in this century on coastal populations. Previous measurements by NASA satellites of how high above sea level coastal areas are, were inexact […]

Climate Crisis

As humans burn fossil fuels, global sea level is rising 2x the rate of the 20th century

The Conversation

By Cassandra Brooks | – The U.N.‘s climate panel report released Sept. 25 makes crystal clear that the planet’s oceans, snow and ice are in dire trouble and the damage is causing harm to the people who depend on them. Even with aggressive efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, many nations will struggle to adapt. […]