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Hunter Cutting

Rising waters, stronger storm surge inundating Virgina coast - 0 views

  • POQUOSON -- Hurricane Isabel flooded Sandy Firman's house in 2003, and now routine storms drive water into the roads and marshes close by. Several homes in this low-lying city, including Firman's, have been elevated about 10 feet to keep them above the ever-closer waters. "We used to not have it like that," said Firman, who has lived in Poquoson all of his 46 years. "But something has changed around here." One big thing that has changed is the sea level, which is rising -- an increase blamed on global warming.
  • In southeastern Virginia, the rising sea is a problem now, and scientists expect it to get much, much worse.
  • The sea level in this region has been rising about a foot a century -- the highest rate on the East Coast. Scientists project a potentially devastating rise of 2 to 7 feet by 2100.
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  • Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia is unusually vulnerable. It is flat, and its land is sinking. It has nearly 2 million residents. It is home to popular beaches, waterfront homes, military bases, a huge tourism industry and ecologically valuable marshes.
  • "Hampton Roads is one of the most vulnerable regions in the United States to sea-level rise, in terms of population and assets at risk," said Eric J. Walberg, a former staff member for the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.
  • Rising sea levels around the world are attributed to warming. When water warms, it expands. Melting polar ice sheets also raise the waters. In Virginia, sea levels are rising faster than the global average because the land is sinking
  • During the last ice age thousands of years ago, the weight of glaciers pushed down land in what is now the northern U.S. When those glaciers receded, that northern land began to rise, and land here started sinking, as if Virginia were on the end of a see-saw after the other rider got off. Throughout most of the 20th century, the sea level in southeastern Virginia rose about twelve-hundredths of an inch a year -- or 12 inches per century. But over the past two decades or so, the rate appears to have doubled in places. About half of that increase seems to be due to the sinking of land, and half to global warming, said Carl Hershner, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "And the forecast -- this is the scary part -- is for that acceleration to rise," Hershner said. Scientists say the future increases will be caused almost entirely by climate change. "We will still be sinking," Hershner said, "but that will be a smaller and smaller fraction of the change we experience."
  • Many of the piers at the Norfolk Naval Station were built around World War II. During storms or even higher-than-normal tides in recent years, the water began to rise so high that it flooded low-lying areas of the base and covered utility lines, including high-voltage electrical cables, suspended beneath the old piers. That meant frequent losses of power and other services to the base's ships. "Sea-level rise was having a negative impact on the readiness of the combat forces at the base," said Joe Bouchard, the base's commander from 2000 to 2003.
  • The Navy was already planning a multimillion-dollar project to replace the aging piers at Norfolk, the world's largest naval base. To cope with the rising waters, Navy engineers designed double-deck piers with the utility lines suspended from the main, upper deck, about 20 feet above sea level.
  • Cmdr. Wendy L. Snyder, a Defense Department spokeswoman, acknowledged that flooding occurs at the Norfolk and Langley bases. The department is concerned and is studying the problem, she said. "We are going to assess the impacts of climate change for all of our installations." As for possible base closings in Hampton Roads, Snyder said she did not want to speculate.
  • A powerful storm hit Virginia's coast in 1933. But the less-powerful Hurricane Isabel in 2003 -- which became a tropical storm about the time it entered Virginia -- caused similar flooding because the sea level by then had risen 9 to 10 inches. Isabel gained extra destructive power by sending its storm surge inland on higher waters, Hershner said. Isabel caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. On top of all that, scientists predict global warming will cause more-powerful storms in coming decades. And in Hampton Roads, more and more people are building near the shore, putting themselves and their property at risk.
  • Low-lying parts of Hampton Roads flood now from fairly routine storms and tides, said Skip Stiles, director of Wetlands Watch, a Norfolk environmental group. "Anywhere you go, people have stories" about how the water comes up higher than it used to.
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    First in a series of feature stories by the Richmond Times-Dispatch
Hunter Cutting

Sea level rise particularly high for Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and... - 0 views

  • Sea-Le
  • Sea-Level Rise in Indian Ocean Observed
  • A new study concludes that Indian Ocean sea levels are rising unevenly and threatening residents in some densely populated coastal areas and islands. The study, led by scientists at the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., finds that the sea-level rise is at least partly a result of climate change.
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  • Sea-level rise is particularly high along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, as well as the islands of Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java, the authors found. The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area spanning a huge region of the tropical oceans stretching from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The warm pool has heated by about 1 degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, primarily because of human-generated emissions in greenhouse gases.
Hunter Cutting

Small islands coping with inches of sea-level rise, with higher waves supplying sand an... - 0 views

  • islands are coping with sea-level change, with higher waves and water depth supplying sand and gravel from coral reefs.
  • study shows the islands are coping with sea-level change, with higher waves and water depth supplying sand and gravel from coral reefs.
  • "In other words, they (the islands) are slowly moving ... migrating across their reef platforms," he said. "As the sea-level conditions and wave conditions are changing, the islands are adjusting to that."
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  • an accelerated rate of sea-level rise could be "the critical environmental threat to the small island nations," with "a very rapid rate of island destruction" possible from a water depth beyond a certain threshold. That threshold is unknown.
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    An Associated Press story on a widely mis-reported science study on the impact of climate change on small coral atolls in the south Pacific.
Hunter Cutting

Thousands emigrate as seas rise over Sunderbans - 0 views

  • Another community likewise affected equally, if not more, by climate change is the one which inhabits the Tropics in the Sunderban forests. Straddling the massive delta of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna on the Bay of Bengal spreading across India and Bangladesh, Sunderbans are spread over an area of more than 10000 square kilometres. More than half of it has the world’s largest mangrove forests which have been declared as two different World Heritage Sites for the two countries. The forests are a
  • Another community likewise affected equally, if not more, by climate change is the one which inhabits the Tropics in the Sunderban forests. Straddling the massive delta of Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna on the Bay of Bengal spreading across India and Bangladesh, Sunderbans are spread over an area of more than 10000 square kilometres. More than half of it has the world’s largest mangrove forests which have been declared as two different World Heritage Sites for the two countries. The forests are also home to a substantial population of the threatened Royal Bengal Tiger.
  • A 2007 report of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO) said that a 45 centimetres anthropogenic rise in the sea level by the end of the current century is likely to destroy 75 per cent of the Sunderban mangroves within the current century. However, certain inhabited islands have already disappeared having been overtaken by the sea. Among them are Lohachara and the New Moore islands. Another island, Ghoramara, has lost around half of its landmass turning more than half of the Island’s population of 12000 into climate refugees. They have all fled – some to the mainland and others elsewhere in Sunderbans. The remaining have had to give up cultivation in the fertile soil or gathering honey from the jungle and have taken to fishing. Researchers have heard the same story retold everywhere in the Sunderbans. As the sea-water comes in floods it destroys the crops, the soil takes on the sea’s salinity and renders it unproductive. Moving away and looking for a safer place is the only alternative to cope with the rising sea. Of late, such movements have, however, had to become devastatingly more frequent, stressing the once-simple rhythm of life of these poor people.
Hunter Cutting

Florida mangroves retreating from salt water driven by sea level rise - 0 views

  • Mangroves that line the Everglades and Florida Bay are migrating landward in response to coastal saltwater intrusion, but this migration is only predicted to keep pace with sea level rise that is less than 1 ft. (0.3 m) over the next century (NPS 2009).
  • The Florida Keys are already experiencing effects of storm surge, overwash, and salinity encroachment, and increasing sea level rise could reduce the amount of habitat available to endangered species such as the Key deer (Odocoileus virginianus clavium) and silver rice rats (Oryzomys palustris natator). An increase in intensity of storms could further contribute to loss of habitat, destruction of natural barriers, and direct mortality of wildlife. For example, Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 storm, destroyed over 80% of the mangroves in the vicinity of Highland Beach in Everglades National Park (Smith et al. 1994).
Hunter Cutting

Rising sea drives Panama islanders to mainland - 0 views

  • Rising seas from global warming, coming after years of coral reef destruction, are forcing thousands of indigenous Panamanians to leave their ancestral homes on low-lying Caribbean islands. Seasonal winds, storms and high tides combine to submerge the tiny islands, crowded with huts of yellow cane and faded palm fronds, leaving them ankle-deep in emerald water for days on end.Pablo Preciado, leader of the island of Carti Sugdub, remembers that in his childhood floods were rare, brief and barely wetted his toes. "Now it's something else. It's serious," he said.
  • The increase of a few inches in flood depth is consistent with a global sea level rise over Preciado's 64 years of life and has been made worse by coral mining by the islanders that reduced a buffer against the waves.Carti Sugdub is one of a handful of islands in an archipelago off Panama's northeastern coast, where the government says climate change threatens the livelihood of nearly half of the 32,000 semi-autonomous Kuna people.The 2,000 inhabitants of Carti Sugdub plan to move to coastal areas within the Kuna's autonomous territory on the Panama mainland. They are eyeing foothills a half-hour walk from the swampy beach areas."The water level is rising. The move is imminent," said Preciado, who has been leading a group of villagers clearing tropical forest for the new settlement.
  • "This is no longer about a scientist saying that climate change and the change in sea level will flood (a people) and affect them," said Hector Guzman, a marine biologist and coral specialist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. "This is happening now in the real world."
Hunter Cutting

Storm surge, sea level rise map for Washington DC - 0 views

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    On-line maps illustrating the combined effect of storm surge and higher sea levels in the Chesapeake Bay, including Washington DC. The long-term climate trend is toward strong hurricanes which generate stronger storm surge.
Hunter Cutting

Greenland land mass rising as ice sheet melts - 0 views

  • Greenland's ice is melting so quickly the land underneath is rising at an accelerated pace. Researchers said some coastal areas are rising by nearly 1 inch per year
  • "It's been known for several years that climate change is contributing to the melting of Greenland's ice sheet," Professor Tim Dixon, who led the study, said. "What's surprising, and a bit worrisome, is the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response. Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying melting is accelerating."
Hunter Cutting

Sea level rise maps - 0 views

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    Sea level rise maps published by DGESL :
Hunter Cutting

U.S.-Vietnam relations extend to sea-level rise - 0 views

  • In an interview during the 15th anniversary of normalization of relations between Vietnam and the United States by People's Army newspaper, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh said that the two countries should continue to improve relations after having overcome many obstacles and put aside the past.
  • Both countries have cooperated regarding rising sea levels caused by global warming, clearing the bombs and mines left over by the war and handling the issues caused by the consequences of Agent Orange.
Hunter Cutting

New Moore Island lost to sea level rise - 0 views

  • From Africa to the Himalayas, everyone's worried about global warming's potential to drive world conflict. But what about the disputes it will solve? A long-running argument between India and Bangladesh over a small island in the Bay of Bengal has just been resolved: the island's not there anymore: 
  • New Moore Island [also known as South Talpatti] in the Sunderbans has been completely submerged, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said. "What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.
Hunter Cutting

Greenland rapidly rising as ice melt continues: Science Daily - 0 views

  • Greenland's ice is melting so quickly that the land underneath is rising at an accelerated pace.
  • "What's surprising, and a bit worrisome, is that the ice is melting so fast that we can actually see the land uplift in response," he says. "Even more surprising, the rise seems to be accelerating, implying that melting is accelerating."
Hunter Cutting

Oceans are becoming warmer - 0 views

  • the upper layer of Earth's global ocean has warmed since 1993, indicating a strong climate change signal.
  • study that analyzed nine different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean from 1993 to 2008
  • a warming ocean is a direct cause of global sea level rise, since seawater expands and takes up more space as it heats
Hunter Cutting

All 10 NOAA climate indicators tracking warming - 0 views

  • The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years. Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.
  • “For the first time, and in a single compelling comparison, the analysis brings together multiple observational records from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The records come from many institutions worldwide. They use data collected from diverse sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming,”
Hunter Cutting

"Warmer temperatures the new normal": NOAA - 0 views

  • Hot summers (and balmier winters) may simply be the new normal, thanks to carbon dioxide lingering in the atmosphere for centuries. This trend reaches back further than a couple of years. There have been exactly zero months, since February 1985, with average temperatures below those for the entire 20th century. (And those numbers are not as dramatic as they could be, because the last 15 years of the 20th century included in this period raised its average temperature, thereby lessening the century-long heat differential.) That streak—304 months and counting—was certainly not broken in June 2010, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last month saw average global surface temperatures 0.68 degree Celsius warmer than the 20th-century average of 15.5 degrees C for June—making it the warmest June at ground level since record-keeping began in 1880.
  • Not only that, June continued another streak—this year, it was the fourth warmest month on record in a row globally, with average combined land and sea surface temperatures for the period at 16.2 degrees C. The high heat in much of Asia and Europe as well as North and South America more than counterbalanced some local cooling in southern China, Scandinavia and the northwestern U.S.—putting 2010 on track to surpass 2005 as the warmest year on record. Even in the higher reaches of the atmosphere—where cooling of the upper levels generally continues thanks to climate change below—June was the second warmest month since satellite record-keeping began in 1978, trailing only 1998. "Warmer than average global temperatures have become the new normal," says Jay Lawrimore, chief of climate analysis at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which tracks these numbers. "The global temperature has increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit [0.7 degree C] since 1900 and the rate of warming since the late 1970s has been about three times greater than the century-scale trend."
  • All this heat comes at a time when the sun—despite a recent uptick in solar storm activity, much of it associated with sunspots, since late 2008—continues to pump out slightly less energy. This diminished solar radiation should be promoting a slight cooling but is apparently outweighed by the ongoing accumulation of atmospheric greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, as scientists have predicted for more than a century. Of course year to year variations in weather cannot be conclusively tied to climate change, which is best measured by a multiyear trend, such as the long-term trend of warming into which this year fits—2000 to 2010 is already the warmest decade since records have been kept and the 10 warmest average annual surface temperatures have all occurred in the past 15 years.
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  • "Frankly, I was expecting that we'd see large temperature increases later this century with higher greenhouse gas levels and global warming," Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, who headed up the research, said in a prepared statement. "I did not expect to see anything this large within the next three decades."
Hunter Cutting

Jellyfish blooms proliferating in warmer, saltier oceans - 0 views

  • while weather patterns are some of the most visible indicators of climate change, we are able to look at other patterns in the ecosystem as equally important measurements.  Among these patterns are jellyfish blooms, which are proliferating at an incredible pace. 
  • There are a number of factors contributing to the increase of jellyfish blooms, most of which are linked to global warming.  Jellyfish are thriving due to warmer and saltier waters as well as an increase in plankton growth.  In addition, overfishing has created a niche for jellyfish to exploit.  In years before predators were consuming much more of the ocean’s nutrients.  Now however, there is less competition leaving more for jellyfish.  This is also the case with agricultural runoff, where jellyfish are able to capitalize on the organisms feeding on the bacteria.  The current trend in climate change shows that the ice cover is melting much later in the spring, spawning more rapid and increased amounts of plankton growth.  There are various theories based on this evidence, but perhaps the strongest supports the idea that increased sunlight is favorable for the plankton.  This is especially true in colder regions such as the Bearing Sea, where scientists and fisherman alike have noticed drastic increases in jellyfish blooms.  But despite recent awareness, population control will only be a reality once the global climate patterns stabilize. For most, summer draughts mean hot days and dry gardens.  For jellyfish, however, it means saltier waters.  As rain becomes less frequent there is less fresh water entering the ocean.  Although it’s not the case with all jellyfish, most will benefit from a higher salt content.  This also relates to other predators and fish species, which are less tolerant of the salt increase and will often move from the coast into deeper, less salty waters.  As the ocean gets warmer and the water level rises, the jellyfish survival rate also goes up.  It creates the right conditions for jellyfish blooms to prosper, which results in a longer span of migration.  Now there are jellyfish species that are being labeled invasive.  Beachgoers have to swim with a new element of caution, unable to know which new species has moved in, and which has left. 
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    A report from a commercial jellyfish aquarium manufacturer
Hunter Cutting

Mango production in Philippines hit by erratic weather attributed to climate change - 0 views

  • Aside from the possible sinking of many parts of Iloilo, Alvarez noted that climate change has started affecting the mango production on the island of Guimaras, resulting to losses among mango farmers. In 2009 the National Mango Research and Development Center (NMRDC) reported that erratic weather pattern, which has been attributed to climate change, has already taken its toll on the production of the “sweetest” mango in the world.
  • Rhod Orquia, junior researcher at the NMRDC, said mango production in Guimaras is being threatened by climate change, since the shifting trend in the onset of rains already affects the planting process and harvesting schedule of mangoes.
Hunter Cutting

Most severe 30 days of weather in Minnesota record - 0 views

  • Thursday Flood Risk (and the most severe 30 days in Minnesota history?)
  • Paul's Star Tribune Outlook for the Twin Cities and all of Minnesota
  • we just lived through an incredible 30-day period. According to the local National Weather Service Office in Chanhassen we experienced 395 severe storms between June 17 and July 17. That compares to 120 severe storms in all of 2009! So in a mere 30 days we saw more than 3 TIMES more severe weather than we did all of last year.
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  • SPC issued a "moderate risk" of severe storms and tornadoes a total of 5 times, in just 30 days. To put that in perspective between 2008 and early 2010 SPC had issued 5 moderate risks. So we endured (in one month) what had previously taken over 2 years to achieve in terms of elevated weather risk.
  • Soak up today's blue sky and 80-degree highs, because the latest NAM/WRF model (probably the most accurate & reliable simulation of future weather) is printing out nearly 4" of rain for the metro area Thursday. If that verifies it would be nearly a MONTH'S worth of rain in less than 12 hours.
  • Finally, the latest from NOAA: June was the warmest month, worldwide, since accurate records were first started in 1880. It was the 4th consecutive month of record warmth around the world, the 304 month in a row where global temperatures were above the 20th century average. 2010 is still on track to be the warmest year (globally) on record, even warmer than 2005. More coincidences? Possibly, but at some point you look at all these trends, scratch your head, and wonder if maybe those climate scientists aren't right (a recent poll of published, active PhD climate scientists showed that 97% of them believe the earth's atmosphere is warming, and man has at least some role in this warming trend). That's good enough for me - should be good enough for all of us mere mortals (who don't study the earth's climate 18 hours/day). The professional (paid) deniers and their "institutes" will come up with more excuses and refutations, citing a global conspiracy among climate scientists. Don't believe them, any more than you'd believe a tobacco lobbyist denying the ill effects of smoking and the link between tobacco and cancer. The trends are apparent to anyone taking the time to really look at the science. No one heat wave, month or year proves anything, but what we have here is a steady trickle of evidence, a gradual accumulation of coincidences that can no longer be denied. Melting glaciers, thinning arctic ice, rising sea levels, an uptick in drought and 1-in-500 year floods are all symptoms. The earth's atmosphere is running a mild fever. The question: do we believe the doctors and treat the patient now, or wait for those symptoms to worsen? It's not ideology, it's not a political litmus test, it's not a "new religion." It's basic science.
Hunter Cutting

Key Greenland glacier retreats in July - 0 views

  • The Jakobshavn Isbrae glacier, one of the largest glaciers in Greenland, swiftly lost a 2.7-square mile chunk of ice between July 6 and 7, NASA announced late last week. The ice loss pushed the point where the glacier meets the ocean, known as the "calving front," nearly one mile farther inland in a single day. According to the space agency, the new calving front location is the farthest inland on record.
  • The Jakobshavn Isbrae is what is known as an outlet glacier, which the National Snow and Ice Data Center defines as "a valley glacier which drains an inland ice sheet or ice cap and flows through a gap in peripheral mountains." In other words, it serves as a drainage pipe from the land ice into the ocean. According to NASA, the Jakobshavn Isbrae, which is located in western Greenland at about 69 degrees north latitude, is the largest outlet glacier in Greenland, draining 6.5 percent of Greenland's ice sheet area.
  • NASA reports that "as much as 10 percent of all ice lost from Greenland is coming through Jakobshavn, which is also believed to be the single largest contributor to sea level rise in the northern hemisphere."
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  • Interestingly, this particular glacier has been retreating especially rapidly in recent years. As the below image shows, the ice front receded more 27 miles in 160 years, but in recent years the ice loss rate has increased, with six miles of retreat observed in just the past decade.
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