Re: Greenland ice-loss doubles in past decade, raising sea level faster (Forwarded)

Terrell Miller <millerto@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Jim Logajan" <JamesL@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns9774DD37249FAJamesLLugojcom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Jim Oberg" <jameseoberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
PERSPECTIVE would be telling how much sea level rise
is caused by a cubic kilometer of ice.

Well - here's an article that actually states expected sea level rise:
http://observer.bard.edu/articles/news/186

so basically they say that *if* the level of CO2 hits 4x what it is today
and then levels off over the next 50 years...then by 500 years from now the
ocean level will have risen a whopping *six* feet.

No, that is just the effect of thermal expansion of the ocean water
if global temperature of the ocean rises somewhat. The effect if the
continental ice sheets melt completely is much more dramatic (80 meters
if both Greenland and Antarctica ever get ice-free).

http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~tk/climate_dynamics/climate_impact_webpage.html

"The sea level rise projections in Fig. 4 are the expected changes due to
thermal expansion of sea water alone, and do not include the effect of
melted continental ice sheets.With the effect of ice sheets included,
the total rise could be larger by a substantial factor. However,
projections of the contribution of the ice sheets to future sea level
rise are not presented here due to the difficulties of performing a
credible calculation. For reference, the volume of ice in the Greenland
and Antarctica ice sheets is equivalent to a sea level rise of 7 and 73
meters, respectively (IPCC, 1995)."

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