Tip: Buy property in Greenland—now.
Living at 1,040 feet above sea level, I have little concern that my house will be inundated by sea water 80 years from now (would that I could be around to prove I’m correct). A new report estimates a sea level rise from ice melt to be in the neighborhood of 40 centimeters by century’s end. Whew! After 80 years my house will still be over a thousand feet above sea level. My children’s, children’s, children’s children, should they choose to live where I now live, will not frolic in the waves on the oceanic shores of Appalachian Plateau and will not have to worry about a storm surge’s washing away the old homestead. But then, that 40-centimeter rise is just the “worst case scenario” according to Dr. Tom Slater of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds.* The rise could be less.
And, of course, you know the villain. Yes, carbon dioxide, which, as you also know, makes up more than 400 ppm of our atmosphere at present, a very high level by comparison with past levels. Take, for instance, the atmospheric carbon dioxide content of 14,000 years ago, when the air over Greenland’s ice sheet warmed by as much as 14 degrees Celsius in just a few decades according to Jo Brendryen of Norway’s University of Bergen.** What was the carbon dioxide component of the atmosphere at that time? Supposedly, 240 parts per million. But way back then, the Eurasian ice sheet melted in just a few centuries, according to Brendryen.
Whoa! I’m trying to understand. If 240 parts per million is associated with the melting of the Eurasian ice sheet, how is it that the 250 parts per million of the nineteenth century did not cause a similar melting at the end of the Little Ice Age and at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Surely, either the numbers are wrong or the cause of glacial melt is more complex than the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Could the orientation of Earth’s tilt to the plane of its orbit somehow be involved? You know, that Milankovich cycle stuff about the shape of the orbit and the wobble of the axis of rotation. If so, we’re about 13,000 years from a complete shift away from Polaris and toward Vega as the North Star and the simultaneous tilt toward the sun during perihelion. We’re headed toward a summertime when the Northern Hemisphere “leans” toward the sun during the planet’s closest approach to our star. Seems reasonable to suggest that at 13,000 or 14,000 years from the last apex of the cycle, we’re about halfway through the Milankovich cycle of 26,000 years. If we keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, that cyclic tilt during perihelion ought to coincide with about a million parts of carbon per million parts of atmosphere. We will be Venus.
I guess we’re just lucky that our ancient ancestors, fresh off a period when they completely replaced the Neanderthals, weren’t sophisticated enough to start the Industrial Revolution at the time of that melt some 14,000 years ago. They would have exacerbated the natural heating cycle. Seas would have risen dramatically. My house’s location would have been only 800 feet above sea level, not ocean-front property, but surely within a short drive to a surf lapping on the Piedmont.
I don’t want to downplay the effects of a worst-case ice melt scenario. There are real people who live along shorelines and who will have to move or suffer repeated storm surge damage. And because there are more people living in coastal cities than there were 14,000 years ago when there were no coastal cities, entire societies will be affected by a change in eustacy. That is, if the worst-case scenario plays out. It might, but it might not.
Of course, the economically prudent course of action would be to play it safe, to do whatever is necessary to reduce any cause of ice melt and to maintain the average temperature of the past 150 years—lower temperatures might precipitate another Little Ice Age like that of the 14th through 19th centuries. Seems that we’re in need of a delicate balance on a planet of climatic vicissitudes.
So, let’s convince the people living at elevations higher than the projected sea level’s worst-case scenario to stop doing whatever they are doing for the sake of their lowland neighbors. Good luck with that, of course. Seems that we cannot get even the lowland neighbors to stop doing whatever they are doing that exacerbates the “problem.” In general, humans act, whether they want to admit it or not, like a herd of cats.
Here’s another idea. Get everyone who lives along the coast to move inland now. Why wait for rising seas to cost them property and lives? Why spend money on levees and sea walls? And while we’re at it, let’s get all the people who live in earthquake and eruption zones to move, also. And those severe summer heat and winter cold areas? Why should anyone live there?
I’m beginning to think I live in an earthly paradise on the Appalachian Plateau. Sure, there are some high heat days in summer and some bitter cold days in winter, but precipitation is moderate, sometimes a little more than usual, sometimes a bit droughty. Big snows fall occasionally; big rains, also. But earthquakes are rare here, usually the product of crustal rebound as a once depressed crust rises like carpet fibers in a footprint. No active volcanoes here to worry about. Tornadoes do hit on occasion, but are typically infrequent though straight-line winds do knock trees down and shingles off roofs almost every year. Floods? Well, yes, but only in the narrow valleys of the Cheat, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Allegheny, and some of their tributaries. Those rivers rise at times to the elevations of train tracks that trace their courses, usually after spring snowmelt and rains and, naturally and occasionally, after some whopper rainstorm like Hurricane Agnes in the 70s and the 11-inch deluge in the 80s. Some landsliding is also a worry for homeowners perched on steep hills, where alternating layers of friable and indurate rocks differentially weather; but otherwise, it’s relatively stable ground around here, even with the undermining of the past century. But speaking of the mining, I should note that my house sits in a region rich in fossil fuels, coal and natural gas, so should I need to heat my house during excessively cold winters or cool it during excessively warm summers, I don’t have to go far for an energy supply.
Hold on. Forget what I just said. I’m thinking that if I extol the virtues of life on the Appalachian Plateau too much, then all those coastal people might move here along with all those people from earthquake and volcanic zones and all those people from Tornado Alley and the denizens of the American hot-and-dry Southwest. This is not paradise. Repeat: THIS IS NOT PARADISE. Our roads, for example, have lots of curves and ups and downs; tough to get good gas mileage or to go easy on brake pads. And every 17 years the cicada emerge. Fresh sea food is also pricey.
You don’t need to move here. What are the chances of the worst-case scenario’s happening in your lifetime? Remember that the ice melt and sea level rise of 14,000 years ago apparently didn’t have any connection to carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. And what are the chances of a devastating earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, landslide, or volcanic eruption occurring where you live? You know you don’t intend to change your lifestyle, anyway, and even if you did, you probably couldn’t convince others in your region to change theirs, especially if they didn’t live within that 40-centimeter elevation next to the ocean that might or might not be inundated in the next 80 years.
Wait it out if you are young enough. You have 80 years till the seas rise 40 centimeters. But if that rise does affect you personally, think Greenland. There’s going to be a lot of land exposed by the melting. It must have been pleasant during a previous warming a millennium ago. After all, didn’t the Vikings establish villages there? Go buy yourself a piece of a Greenland ice field and wait for your property to reveal itself which, apparently, it inevitably will. You now have a real estate opportunity to pass on to your progeny.
*U. of Leeds. Sea level rise from ice sheet track worst-case climate change scenario. Phys.org. 31 Aug 2020. Online at https://phys.org/news/2020-09-emissions-cm-sea-experts.html Accessed September 18, 2020.
**Galey, Patrick. Eurasian ice sheet collapse raised seas eight metres: study. Phys.org. 20 Apr 2020. Onlne at https://phys.org/news/2020-09-emissions-cm-sea-experts.html Accessed September 18, 2020.
Living at 1,040 feet above sea level, I have little concern that my house will be inundated by sea water 80 years from now (would that I could be around to prove I’m correct). A new report estimates a sea level rise from ice melt to be in the neighborhood of 40 centimeters by century’s end. Whew! After 80 years my house will still be over a thousand feet above sea level. My children’s, children’s, children’s children, should they choose to live where I now live, will not frolic in the waves on the oceanic shores of Appalachian Plateau and will not have to worry about a storm surge’s washing away the old homestead. But then, that 40-centimeter rise is just the “worst case scenario” according to Dr. Tom Slater of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at the University of Leeds.* The rise could be less.
And, of course, you know the villain. Yes, carbon dioxide, which, as you also know, makes up more than 400 ppm of our atmosphere at present, a very high level by comparison with past levels. Take, for instance, the atmospheric carbon dioxide content of 14,000 years ago, when the air over Greenland’s ice sheet warmed by as much as 14 degrees Celsius in just a few decades according to Jo Brendryen of Norway’s University of Bergen.** What was the carbon dioxide component of the atmosphere at that time? Supposedly, 240 parts per million. But way back then, the Eurasian ice sheet melted in just a few centuries, according to Brendryen.
Whoa! I’m trying to understand. If 240 parts per million is associated with the melting of the Eurasian ice sheet, how is it that the 250 parts per million of the nineteenth century did not cause a similar melting at the end of the Little Ice Age and at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution? Surely, either the numbers are wrong or the cause of glacial melt is more complex than the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Could the orientation of Earth’s tilt to the plane of its orbit somehow be involved? You know, that Milankovich cycle stuff about the shape of the orbit and the wobble of the axis of rotation. If so, we’re about 13,000 years from a complete shift away from Polaris and toward Vega as the North Star and the simultaneous tilt toward the sun during perihelion. We’re headed toward a summertime when the Northern Hemisphere “leans” toward the sun during the planet’s closest approach to our star. Seems reasonable to suggest that at 13,000 or 14,000 years from the last apex of the cycle, we’re about halfway through the Milankovich cycle of 26,000 years. If we keep pumping carbon into the atmosphere, that cyclic tilt during perihelion ought to coincide with about a million parts of carbon per million parts of atmosphere. We will be Venus.
I guess we’re just lucky that our ancient ancestors, fresh off a period when they completely replaced the Neanderthals, weren’t sophisticated enough to start the Industrial Revolution at the time of that melt some 14,000 years ago. They would have exacerbated the natural heating cycle. Seas would have risen dramatically. My house’s location would have been only 800 feet above sea level, not ocean-front property, but surely within a short drive to a surf lapping on the Piedmont.
I don’t want to downplay the effects of a worst-case ice melt scenario. There are real people who live along shorelines and who will have to move or suffer repeated storm surge damage. And because there are more people living in coastal cities than there were 14,000 years ago when there were no coastal cities, entire societies will be affected by a change in eustacy. That is, if the worst-case scenario plays out. It might, but it might not.
Of course, the economically prudent course of action would be to play it safe, to do whatever is necessary to reduce any cause of ice melt and to maintain the average temperature of the past 150 years—lower temperatures might precipitate another Little Ice Age like that of the 14th through 19th centuries. Seems that we’re in need of a delicate balance on a planet of climatic vicissitudes.
So, let’s convince the people living at elevations higher than the projected sea level’s worst-case scenario to stop doing whatever they are doing for the sake of their lowland neighbors. Good luck with that, of course. Seems that we cannot get even the lowland neighbors to stop doing whatever they are doing that exacerbates the “problem.” In general, humans act, whether they want to admit it or not, like a herd of cats.
Here’s another idea. Get everyone who lives along the coast to move inland now. Why wait for rising seas to cost them property and lives? Why spend money on levees and sea walls? And while we’re at it, let’s get all the people who live in earthquake and eruption zones to move, also. And those severe summer heat and winter cold areas? Why should anyone live there?
I’m beginning to think I live in an earthly paradise on the Appalachian Plateau. Sure, there are some high heat days in summer and some bitter cold days in winter, but precipitation is moderate, sometimes a little more than usual, sometimes a bit droughty. Big snows fall occasionally; big rains, also. But earthquakes are rare here, usually the product of crustal rebound as a once depressed crust rises like carpet fibers in a footprint. No active volcanoes here to worry about. Tornadoes do hit on occasion, but are typically infrequent though straight-line winds do knock trees down and shingles off roofs almost every year. Floods? Well, yes, but only in the narrow valleys of the Cheat, Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Allegheny, and some of their tributaries. Those rivers rise at times to the elevations of train tracks that trace their courses, usually after spring snowmelt and rains and, naturally and occasionally, after some whopper rainstorm like Hurricane Agnes in the 70s and the 11-inch deluge in the 80s. Some landsliding is also a worry for homeowners perched on steep hills, where alternating layers of friable and indurate rocks differentially weather; but otherwise, it’s relatively stable ground around here, even with the undermining of the past century. But speaking of the mining, I should note that my house sits in a region rich in fossil fuels, coal and natural gas, so should I need to heat my house during excessively cold winters or cool it during excessively warm summers, I don’t have to go far for an energy supply.
Hold on. Forget what I just said. I’m thinking that if I extol the virtues of life on the Appalachian Plateau too much, then all those coastal people might move here along with all those people from earthquake and volcanic zones and all those people from Tornado Alley and the denizens of the American hot-and-dry Southwest. This is not paradise. Repeat: THIS IS NOT PARADISE. Our roads, for example, have lots of curves and ups and downs; tough to get good gas mileage or to go easy on brake pads. And every 17 years the cicada emerge. Fresh sea food is also pricey.
You don’t need to move here. What are the chances of the worst-case scenario’s happening in your lifetime? Remember that the ice melt and sea level rise of 14,000 years ago apparently didn’t have any connection to carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. And what are the chances of a devastating earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, landslide, or volcanic eruption occurring where you live? You know you don’t intend to change your lifestyle, anyway, and even if you did, you probably couldn’t convince others in your region to change theirs, especially if they didn’t live within that 40-centimeter elevation next to the ocean that might or might not be inundated in the next 80 years.
Wait it out if you are young enough. You have 80 years till the seas rise 40 centimeters. But if that rise does affect you personally, think Greenland. There’s going to be a lot of land exposed by the melting. It must have been pleasant during a previous warming a millennium ago. After all, didn’t the Vikings establish villages there? Go buy yourself a piece of a Greenland ice field and wait for your property to reveal itself which, apparently, it inevitably will. You now have a real estate opportunity to pass on to your progeny.
*U. of Leeds. Sea level rise from ice sheet track worst-case climate change scenario. Phys.org. 31 Aug 2020. Online at https://phys.org/news/2020-09-emissions-cm-sea-experts.html Accessed September 18, 2020.
**Galey, Patrick. Eurasian ice sheet collapse raised seas eight metres: study. Phys.org. 20 Apr 2020. Onlne at https://phys.org/news/2020-09-emissions-cm-sea-experts.html Accessed September 18, 2020.
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