Map from 1999 article showing warming and cooling trends
(Credit: Goddard Institute)We have 10 years, folks. And then it's man the lifeboats, or head for the hills. That's the conclusion of James Hansen and five other scientists. They've just published a paper with the Royal Society in England. It says melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic could soon reach a point of no return. The team even says the recent reports from the United Nations' global warming conferences are too conservative in their projections of what could happen.
The paper urges quick and decisive action, including attempts to scrub greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Hansen is outspoken and a favorite target of global warming disbelievers. In all fairness, Hansen's been at this climate change thing a long time. Back in 1999 he co-wrote an article on changing temperature patterns around the world. At that time his map showed the U.S. seemed to be cooling temporarily. He didn't try to jiggle the data.
Believe Hansen and his cohort, or diss them, we will soon see who's right. Scientists are actively tracking the ice sheets in Antarctic and those on Greenland where changes will be closely measured.
Tuvalu is one of several Pacific island nations closely watching predictions about rising ocean levels. It's 700 miles north of Fiji. Residents there say the months of highest tides are already worse and wetter than historically. Homes and precious farm land have been lost. Well water is becoming salty. The CIA summary on Tuvalu states it succinctly. "Tuvalu is concerned about global increases in greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on rising sea levels, which threaten the country's underground water table."
Tuvalu and its 12,000 residents have been promised admission to New Zealand if the the nation's nine atolls become uninhabitable. None of the other low-lying island nations have yet found a willing partner. Possibly threatened if seas rise: Vanuatu, Kiribati, Marshall islands, Cook Islands, Fiji and Solomon Islands. Mountainous islands will not be submerged but could lose valuable farmland and coastal towns.
As many as five million Pacific Islanders could be facing an uncertain future if global warming predictions come true.
We now know a lot about tsunamis that we didn't know a few years ago. There's even been significant research showing how hurricanes and tsunamis can act alike once onshore. Today, we learn a little more about a tsunami that occurred 400 years ago.
Scientists now conclude that it was a tsunami that flooded the Bristol Channel in western England. It flooded hundreds of square miles and scoured the landscape, killing about 2,000 people. And that was on January 30, 1607. Long before anybody in England ever heard the word "tsunami." At the time, it was considered a storm.
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