<div dir="ltr"><div><font size="4">I was reading Realclimate.org tonight, part of my usual routine to keep up with global warming issues, and found the comment on sea level rise at the bottom here, by Dan Miller. </font></div><div><font size="4"></font><br></div><div><font size="4">So, who the heck is Dan Miller? He is involved in a website, Climate Place ( <a href="http://climateplace.org/file/Home.html">http://climateplace.org/file/Home.html</a> )</font></div><div><font size="4">with the mission as stated here:</font></div><div><font size="4">"The purpose of this site is to give people the tools and information they need to
make the case for urgent and dramatic action to address climate change."</font></div><div><br></div><div><font size="4">His point about "unadaptable impacts" in the Realclimate.org article is important, given discussion of adaptation to global warming can reduce the urgency of the need to mitigate the progress of climate change, when people feel large scale adaptation is a reasonable and feasible policy, rather than focusing more on mitigation.</font></div><div><font size="4"></font><br></div><div><font size="4">His website appears to offer a lot of credible relevant information.</font></div><div><font size="4"></font><br></div><div><font size="4">A short bio from this website:</font></div><div><font size="4"><p style="padding-top:0pt">Dan received his Bachelor of
Science in Electrical Engineering, with distinction, from Cornell University and
his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He
holds three patents in the areas of compression technology and wireless
communications systems. Dan co-authored a <a title="http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/23-1_greene.pdf" href="http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/23-1_greene.pdf"><font color="#000080">paper on climate
change</font></a> that was published in the journal <span>Oceanography</span>.<br></p>
<p>Mr. Miller is former President of the Foundation
Board of Trustees of the <a title="http://www.chabotspace.org" href="http://www.chabotspace.org/"><font color="#000080">Chabot Space & Science Center</font></a> and is a
founding member of the <a title="http://climatereadinessinstitute.org" href="http://climatereadinessinstitute.org/"><font color="#000080">Climate Readiness Institute</font></a>, a
group made up of UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and Stanford researchers who provide
information to policymakers. He is a member of the XPrize Environment and Energy
Prize Advisory Committee. He is also a member of Cornell University's Computing
and Information Science and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Advisory Boards. Dan is also a member of <a title="http://theclimateproject.org/" href="http://theclimateproject.org/"><font color="#000080">The Climate Project</font></a>.<br></p></font></div><div><font size="4">---------------------------------------</font></div><div><font size="4">Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</font></div><div><font size="4"></font><br></div><div><font size="4">Article below from Realclimate.org</font></div><div><font size="4"></font><br></div><div><font size="4">What drives uncertainties in adapting to sea-level rise?</font></div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/03/what-drives-uncertainties-in-adapting-to-sea-level-rise/?wpmp_tp=1">http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/03/what-drives-uncertainties-in-adapting-to-sea-level-rise/?wpmp_tp=1</a></div><div><br></div><div>3rd comment out of 86 as of now to the article at the web link above:</div><div><br></div><div>3</div><div id="comment-647351"><div><cite><a href="http://climateplace.org/" rel="external nofollow"><font color="#000080">Dan Miller</font></a></cite> <span>says:</span> </div><div><a href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2016/03/what-drives-uncertainties-in-adapting-to-sea-level-rise/#comment-647351"><font color="#000080">18 Mar 2016 at 12:42 AM</font></a></div><p>Sally:</p><p>Rather than provide detailed comments on your question, let me provide some high-level tidbits:</p><p>1. It may be (and I would say that it is likely) that the “official” estimates we have been given for SLR are conservative and the actual rise will be significantly higher/sooner. See Jim Hansen’s paper on “Scientific reticent and sea level rise”:<br><a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/2/2/024002/fulltext/" rel="nofollow"><font color="#000080">http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/2/2/024002/fulltext/</font></a></p><p>2. Hansen also notes that Greenland is currently losing ice mass at an exponential rate. Exponentials are not your friend and if the rate continues for a few decades, we will have ~3 feet of SLR by 2050 and much, much more than that by the end of the century.<br><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20121226_GreenlandIceSheetUpdate.pdf" rel="nofollow"><font color="#000080">http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2012/20121226_GreenlandIceSheetUpdate.pdf</font></a></p><p>3. NASA has said that we have passed a tipping point with the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Sheet (WAIS) and its collapse is now “unstoppable”. This adds about 10 feet of SLR to whatever other SLR we get though the timing is uncertain, but seems to be just hundreds, not thousands of years and maybe sooner.</p><p>4. The last time CO2 levels were what they are today (400ppm), sea levels were about 75 feet higher than they are now. This is where we are heading, though it will take some time. Of course, we are continuing to increase CO2 levels.</p><p>5. As you note, once SLR gets underway, we will never have a stable shoreline again until sea level rise a great amount (perhaps as much as 280 feet if we keep burning fossil fuels and/or natural CO2/methane release processes run away). Therefore, retreat is the only long-term adaption strategy for SLR.</p><p>6. Based on what I have read, I would say it is likely we will see 10~15 feet of SLR by next century (and possibly this century – see (1), (2) and (3) above) and this means the bottom third of Florida (and many other places) will not be on the map next century. I think facing this fact may — just may — help us understand the need to get moving to avoid even more serious and unadaptable impacts.</p></div></div>