Global Chillin

New York Times | New York Times

[I_love_weather]

Global Chilling By PAUL R. EPSTEIN

Published: January 28, 2004

OSTON — It seemed incongruous when former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech on global warming on a bitterly cold day in New York City this month. But in fact it was an appropriate topic: New Yorkers may be able to blame the city's current cold spell — the most severe in nearly a decade — on global warming.

Global warming doesn't mean that every place on the globe gets warmer. The weather history that can be read in polar ice-core samples indicates that previous periods of warming affected North America and Europe far differently than they did the tropics — the Northern Hemisphere got a lot colder.

It's far too early to say for sure, but the same processes may be at work today. In the past 50 years, the top two miles of the world's oceans have warmed significantly, and that warming is melting sea ice. In just four decades, the thickness of summer North Polar floating ice shrank 44 percent. In addition, warming makes droughts drier and longer, and when the evaporated water returns to earth it does so in heavier downpours.

Normally, water circulates in the North Atlantic like this: Cold, salty water at the top sinks; that sinking water acts as a pump, pulling warm Gulf Stream water north and thus moderating winter weather. But now, fresh water from the thawing ice and heavier rain is accumulating near the ocean's surface; it's not sinking as quickly. (The tropics are faced with the opposite phenomenon. According to Dr. Ruth Curry and her colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the tropical Atlantic is becoming saltier; as warming increases, so does evaporation, which leaves behind salt.) The "freshening" in the North Atlantic may be contributing to a high-pressure system that is accelerating trans-Atlantic winds and deflecting the jet stream — changes that may be driving frigid fronts down the Eastern Seaboard. The ice-core records demonstrate that the North Atlantic can freshen to a point where the deep-water pump fails, warm water stops coming north, and the northern ocean suddenly freezes, as it did in the last Ice Age. No one can say if that is what will happen next. But since the 1950's, the best documented deep-water pump, between Iceland and Scotland, has slowed 20 percent.

Why now? After all, the planet's previous periods of global warming resulted from changes in the earth's tilt toward the sun, and recent calculations of these cycles indicate that our hospitable climate was not due to have ended any time soon. But because of the warming brought by the buildup of carbon dioxide, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, the equations have changed. We are entering uncharted waters. It's something for New Yorkers to ponder as they bundle up

[I_love_weather]

The greatest environmental catastrophe in recorded history is now unfolding. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has announced that the North Atlantic Oscillation is failing, and, along with it, the Gulf Stream. The Institute has observed "the largest and most dramatic oceanic change ever measured in the era of modern instruments," in an analysis of Atlantic ocean currents from pole to pole. Woods Hole has found that salinity levels are changing in ways that they have changed in the past leading to periods of abrupt climate change. Polar waters are becoming far less saline, meaning that the "heat pump" effect that draws warm water north is failing.
Dr Ruth Curry, the study's lead scientist, says: "This has the potential to change the circulation of the ocean significantly in our lifetime. Northern Europe will likely experience a significant cooling."

The director of Woods Hole, Robert Gagosian, said: "We may be approaching a threshold that would shut down [the Gulf Stream] and cause abrupt climate changes."

Last summer, Unknowncountry.com reported an ominous sign that the North Atlantic Current was weakening, when cold northern water suddenly appeared along US coastlines as far south as Florida. This suggested that the Gulf Stream had moved farther offshore than normal, which would happen if it weakened and was not flowing north normally.

The extremes of heat and cold that the northern hemisphere has experienced over the past twelve months may be further signs of this effect. Extraordinary heat killed at least 20,000 people in Europe last summer, and extreme cold in north America this winter has been responsible for at least 35 deaths. World weather patterns have become extremely bizarre recently, exemplified by blocks of ice falling from the sky in regions as diverse as New Zealand, Spain and the American South and, within the past few months, tornadoes in Wales and, just yesterday, on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands.

From now on, there is an immediate potential for abrupt climate change. The key factor in the sudden climate change scenario described in the Coming Global Superstorm and many other places is the collapse of the system of currents that equalizes heat and cold over the surface of the earth.

It is likely that climate change will take place over a single season, as the fossil record tells us. It will not be a protracted process, unfolding over hundreds or even tens of years. It will begin with an outburst of violent weather unlike anything recorded in the historical era, and then be followed by years of climactic turmoil. At some point, the climate will either return to the interglacial state it is in now, or we will slip into another ice age, but this is likely to be hundreds of years into the period of turmoil.

Mankind, for the foreseeable future, will experience the full effects of the turmoil and disaster caused by sudden climate change.

This process is going to devastate the northern hemisphere, dramatically altering growing seasons in the United States, Canada and Europe, shortening them, making them entirely unviable in northern areas, and crippling many regions such as the central-western US, with drought so intractable that it will likely result in large scale population movement out of these areas.

This unfortunate situation is in part the result of natural climactic cycling, but it has been sped up by human emissions of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and the process could have been controlled by considered worldwide attention to controlling those emissions. Proper leadership in the developed countries could have prevented this catastrophe, and without significant disruption to business activities or the lives of individuals.

Instead, nothing useful has been done, and now we will go through a significant stage of climatic upheaval that will be accompanied by the death and impoverishment of millions of the best educated and most productive people on earth. This will result in a vast diminishment of mankind and the likely collapse of many of the structures of government, business and finance that we depend upon to insure our safety, prosperity and freedom.

Even if a tremendous reduction in greenhouse gas emissions were achieved within a year, the process would still continue. What we will be able to do, if human society remains organized at a high enough level to achieve this, is to make a slide into another ice age somewhat less likely, and hasten the return of a more acceptable climate.

Questions will be asked: why has this happened? Who is responsible? Among Americans, the answer is clear: political leaders and media personalities have, at the behest of corporate sponsors who feel threatened by environmental controls, lied to the public about the problem, promoting the fallacy that the situation was a matter for debate when, in fact, nature had already cast the die.

Worldwide, various governmental and private entities have misused the threat of environmental disaster as a means of imposing a level of planning on all human activities that many found unacceptable.

In fact, government, the corporate world and environmental groups should all have faced the real and imminent problems in a clear-headed and practical manner, instead of viewing them through the crazy lens of ideology, be it left or right. Instead, ideology has been placed above need in virtually every case, with the result that the worst possible situation has become true: human activities in the form of greenhouse gas emissions have been allowed to exacerbate a natural cycle, with results that promise to be devastating beyond imagination.

It is ironic indeed that the Day After Tomorrow, the film related to the Coming Global Superstorm, will be released in May of 2004, which is likely to be the first month in the past ten thousand years at least that the extreme weather conditions described in that book could actually occur.

At present, only a few paleoclimatologists will admit to the actual violence that the fossil record reveals, and there remain questions about the degree to which the debris from these extremely violent weather events of the distant past actually relates to sudden climate change.

For example, there have been questions surrounding the cause of the quick-freezing of mammoths, whose remains have been periodically found in Alaska and Siberia, often with still undigested food in their mouths and stomachs. It has been claimed that no weather-related mechanism could possibly cause this, and therefore that the mammoths must have fallen into sinkholes and frozen there.

Recently, however, the discovery of quick-frozen plants embedded in glaciers in Peru has revealed the fact that very extreme weather changes to take place on this earth, and result in long-term effects. For example, plants that froze in the Peruvian Andes in a matter of minute ten thousand years ago are only just now being disgorged by glaciers. In other words, plants that were living in a moderate climate were plunged, over what appears to have been the course of just a few hours or even minutes, into extreme cold that held them in its grip for ten thousand years.

All mankind is now threatened by such a danger. Where and when it will strike, or if it will unfold with such super-violence at all is unknown. But the greedy and the foolish among our leadership have released the bull from the paddock, and we are not likely to see it returned anytime soon.

Two questions remain: what can we do and what are the warning signs of sudden climate change?

The primary warning sign has always been the failure of ocean currents, and Woods Hole is telling us that this is happening now. On a more detailed, day-to-day basis, any excursion of warm tropical air into far northern latitudes, from now on, is apt to trigger ferocious storms, and the farther that air penetrates, and the warmer and more humid it is, the more violent the consequences will be.

We will be making certain changes to our Quickwa tch on this website to reflect the changing situation. For example, we are going to expand the number of points from which we pick up air temperature measurements and drop the ocean current measures and observations, except for the Gulf Stream, as they have already been triggered and will not change anytime soon. We will be watching for the dissolution of the Gulf Stream. If this should happen between May and October, the immediate weather effects will stun the world. No matter when it takes place, and it is now certain that it will, it will lead in a single season to an entirely new climate of a kind that is far less viable for us than the one we have known.

Also on our Quickwatch page is an article that contains a series of simple steps that world leaders should have been aggressively asking individuals to take for the past ten years. Instead, they remained mired down in their various political and ideological issues, either claiming that there was no significant environmental problem or that there was a huge problem that could only be solved by massive government intervention, imposing draconian new levels of planning on society at every level, with special emphasis on corporate enterprise and economic development.

However, the fact remains that a great deal can be done:

To reduce individual emissions dramatically, only a few minor lifestyle changes are needed: Replace the 20-year-old fridge with an energy-saver model. CO2 savings = 3,000 pounds. Send out one fewer 30-gallon bags of garbage per week. CO2 savings = 300 pounds. Leave the car at home two days per week. CO2 savings = 1,590 pounds. Recycle cans, bottles, plastic, cardboard and newspapers. CO2 savings = 850 pounds. Switch from standard light bulbs to fluorescents. CO2 savings = 1,000 pounds. Replace the current shower head with a low-flow model. CO2 savings = 300 pounds. Turn the thermostat down two degrees for one year. CO2 savings = 500 pounds. Cut vehicle fuel use by 10 gallons in 2003. CO2 savings = 200 pounds. Switch from hot to warm or cold water for laundry. CO2 savings = 600 pounds.

If these steps were taken by just 20% of U.S., Japanese, Canadian and European inhabitants, world CO2 emission levels would drop to a point that the human factor would be vastly reduced as a source of global warming, and the upheaval that we now face would be reduced in its duration and effect, perhaps to the point that the world as we know it might be restored, not in our lifetimes, but with luck in those of our children.

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=3517

[Broadside Joe]

LOL. Now tell me that this has never happened before.

So let me try a little test of this 'logic'.

(1) I say that this is all a lie and that you will not try to refute that fact. AND

(2) I say that this is all a lie and that you will attempt to refute that fact because you will be on the defensive.

Either way it is a lie and that is a known fact.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Recycle cans, bottles, plastic, cardboard and newspapers. CO2 savings = 850 pounds."

Uh, if you want to reduce CO2 emissions, then you do NOT want to recycle newspapers. Cutting trees, making paper, and then burying the resultant product in landfills is a VERY effective way to sequester carbon and remove it from the atmosphere. We need to STOP recycling newspaper and other paper products if we want to help reduce "global warming" (which really doesn't exist as a "human-induced" phenomenon).

This story is just the same old stale eco-nutcase tripe.

[johniegrad]

Tell him (her) not to worry. Y2.005K is coming in less than 12 months and the world will end anyway.

[johnb838]

the solution?

For the US to sign the Kyoto Treaty, of course. What a bunch of bilge.

[KeyWest]

The cycles of weather are related to the sun. The outside planets are also warming so our warming is sun caused.

Ice ages are preceded by abrupt increases in warming but abrupt is not over a year but many years. The conjecture that ice ages are caused by ocean currents is still theory.

The least understood factor in weather is the sun, mainly because of the sun's cycles. It is easy for us to identify short term cycles (like the 11 year cycle). The problem is long term cycles and how they harmonically interact. They can both increase and decrease the sun's output.

Truth is, there is not much we can do about it. Nuclear energy is one option for heat, but the same people who complain about global warming are anti-nuclear also. Go figure.

[Broadside Joe]

These wackos seem to forget that averages are made up of extremes. The early 1900's have many cases of extreme weather events both hot and cold. And they have yet to explain the output of volcanoes and sunspot activity. Or how about the massive amounts of CO2 that the oceans put out?

And as has been stated many times, CO2= plant food.

[Jagman]

I admire James Woods quite a bit, but why would anyone trust his hole when it comes to global warming? He's an actor, right?

[capt. norm]

"Global warming doesn't mean that every place on the globe gets warmer."

Well excuuuse meeeee! I certainly think the term global warming certainly hints at it then.

As long as they keep redefiniing what global warming means, they will always be able to conjure up some.

After all, they conjured up the computer models to tell them just what they wanted to hear. Even Dr. Frankenstein was more scientific than that when he built his monster. (If it hadn't been for Igor picking up the wrong brain, who knows?)

As long as there's big bucks in grant money and the scientists know that if thay can't produce a disaster scenario they will become unemployed, this kind of crap will continue to flow like a river.

[capt. norm]

"If these steps were taken by just 20% of U.S., Japanese, Canadian and European inhabitants, world CO2 emission levels would drop to a point that the human factor would be vastly reduced as a source of global warming,"

Yes, vastly reduced as a source but still would not make any significant difference. As I recall from an earlier publication it would, at best, delay the so-called global warming by a few years.

The human contribution is such a tiny fraction of a percent that it is like an extra quart of water going over Niagara Falls. Not to mention that one volcano could out-do the human footprint in the atmosphere in very short time.

[I_love_weather]

I doubt there is much we can do to stop what is going on.

That doesn't mean what they are saying is not correct though...

If true...then it is too late and signing a treaty changes nothing.

[Jhensy]

Instead, nothing useful has been done, and now we will go through a significant stage of climatic upheaval that will be accompanied by the death and impoverishment of millions of the best educated and most productive people on earth. This will result in a vast diminishment of mankind and the likely collapse of many of the structures of government, business and finance that we depend upon to insure our safety, prosperity and freedom.

"And it will be the start of the rioting, the chaos, the punching and kicking and the hey-hey-hey-it-hurts me..."

[taxed2death]

hmmmmmm.....two things....
1. I hate cold weather....so anything that makes my hometown a few degrees warmer is welcome.

2. Show me a planet in thermal stasis, and I'll show you a dead planet.

[I_love_weather]

Read the research papers. Read what these people are finding.

Obviously the oceans are changing. There is data to back this up. The Gulf Stream data is fact.

Are we blind? Do we just laugh because it sounds silly?

Do we laugh because we are scared to face reality?

Or are we perhaps not wanting to face reality that something major is going on?

[capt. norm]

You are very much misinformed,

Global warming is a political exercise that is not at all well-based in fact.

Most of their hogwash has been disproven outright.

The remainder comes from computer models which are "tweaked" to produce exactly the results they want.

These models are so inept that they can't even reproduce past weather. This is like being unable to figure out 'who dun it' in a mystery novel after already having read the ending.

The earth has been going through these cycles for eons and we miniscule humans couldn't change it if we worked full time at it.

[Number_Cruncher]

Here is some information from the redoubtable Carl Wunsch, who, in recent papers, has completely demolished naive concepts of the thermohaline circulation as being promulgated right now. It's hard to pick the best quote - go to Wunsch's website, there are a couple of recent papers, the shortest one being "What is the Thermohaline Circulation?", but there are two long considerations of the topic.

"Even the widespread inference that adding fresh water to the northern North Atlantic reduces the meridional overturning circulation, and is the direct analogue of the S61 salinity mode is difficult to justify. For example, Nilsson and Walin (2001), Nilsson et al. (2003) show that fresh water injection can enhance both the meridional overturning mass, and heat flux rates depending-as one also infers from the loop models-upon exactly how the mixing rates vary with external forcing and their effects on the overall stratification. Similarly, Manabe and Stouffer (1999) concluded that the behavior of their model depended upon a particular choice of diffusivity. It appears that by choosing specific non-dimensional parameters and postulating particular initial conditions, that one can make the loop geometry reproduce almost any bulk property of the circulation. Particular attention is called to the delicate role of mixing, and of the restoring coefficient;, in determining which equilibrium is reached. Furthermore, the tendency to conflate discussions of the mass and heat fluxes, which are not so simply related even in one-dimensional models, only confuses the interpretation of three-dimensional models in which mass and heat fluxes can behave nearly independently (Wunsch, 2002)."

Wunsch shows that the meridional overturning circulation is driven by winds (especially in the Southern Oceans) and tides and that the sinking of cold water in the North Atlantic does not "drive" the circulation, but is driven by outside energy.

In short, Epstein's claims are based on speculation and not backed up by sound science.

[Alas Babylon!]

If the North Atlantic conveyor has shut down in the past, and this is documented in the ice core records, and in fact has occurred thousands of times in the past then....

How can every scientist you cite claim it is NOW being caused by human CO2 emissions when....

In the past, when in those thousands of times, NO human technological civilizations existed that were putting CO2 emissions in the atmosphere?????

If you used logic, you would HAVE to come up with a different cause.

Come back when you find the REAL reason.

BTW, I don't dispute the fact that ice ages happened, and that they might even have been preceded by the shutting down of the North Atlantic conveyor, but it defies logic to now blame modern man, when he has only existed during this last phase of interglacial times. It may very well be that our footprint on the Earth's climate is very tiny indeed and in fact, not relevant to the overall oscillation of warming and cooling.

[laredo44]

So many Chicken Littles and so few skies falling.

For the sake of argument, say some of this is true. Would you rather be battling climate changes with the advances developed under capitalism or those of the various kinds of collectivism? Advocates of which system are pretty much advising us to just give up right now?

[I_love_weather]

Sorry you did not understand me.

I don't care whether we as humans had anything to do with this or not.

I am just talking about the subject at hand.

Who cares if we are at fault or not.

That does not change the facts.

So why get irked at these scientists for blaming humans? So what. The underlying facts remain the same. Something is going wrong with the climate and the ocean currents.

[I_love_weather]

For what it is worth...

I don't believe humans have anything to do with with all of this.

I think it is just a natural process.

[Broadside Joe]

"Obviously the oceans are changing. There is data to back this up. The Gulf Stream data is fact."

Has this happened before?

" Are we blind?"
No not me.

"Do we just laugh because it sounds silly?"

No we laugh because to ignore this happening a number of times in the past makes it silly.

"Do we laugh because we are scared to face reality?"
No we laugh because you fail to face reality.

" Or are we perhaps not wanting to face reality that something major is going on? "

Just in case you haven't noticed, when talking about weather, there is always something major going on. Always has been, always will be.

[I_love_weather]

Yeah that made a lot of sense...

[johndpringle]

Of course there were technological human civilizations that cause the Gulf Stream to shut down. Atlantis, Lemuria, Hyboria and even the pre-Valusian Age civilizations all contributed to this effect. You can look it up in Dr. Robert E. Howard's classic reference works.

[Broadside Joe]

Well good then stop worrying over a natural process.
Buy an air conditioner and down filled undies. That way you have both extremes covered.

[petercooper]

BS garbage

[I_love_weather]

Intelligent reply...

[petercooper]

It is. Look for the facts on your BS here>>

http://www.junkscience.com/

[lawdude]

" The underlying facts remain the same. Something is going wrong with the climate and the ocean currents. "

Something is going 'wrong'? I would say the natural progression of climatic change is going 'right'. Since it is nature at work and shows just how insignificant man's activities are.

In other words, stand on a beach and turn back the tide...if you can!

[kickstart]

....So why get irked at these scientists for blaming humans? So what. The underlying facts remain the same. Something is going wrong with the climate and the ocean currents.....

There is nothing "wrong" with the weather. The weather just is what it is.

[Alas Babylon!]

No, you give considerable attention to human-created CO2 emissions as the cause. My point is that if this is true, than that is the FIRST time this is the cause when the effects have happened multiple times.

The reason why this is important is that our way of life, especially the life and economy of the United States of America, is being attacked as the cause!!! Therefore, who benefits if the economy of the United States is reduced to prevent this so-called CAUSE of climate change? The Earth? That is what you and the leftist POLIYICALLY inspired climate "scientists" are saying.

But once again, I point to the data, which shows these climate changes have happened numerous times in the past, without the economic powerhouse of the United States and its factories, SUV-driving citizens, and huge herds of feed-lot cattle, etc.

I do not dispute the fact that climate change did and will occur. I just don't want to see this fact used to attack my country and way of life. Give me real proof that the CO2 emissions may cause a potential ice age and I would agree. Moreover, these political "scientists" (Kyoto) ignore CO2 powerhouses like China and India in their desire to see the American and Western European economies destroyed for the sake of the Earth. And believe me, only by destroying our economy will they be happy.

The worse thing the left can do with science is to use it as a political tool. This is no different than the Nazi's using genetics and race as proof of their master race status. Pure bunk either way. Until I see the proof--not of warming--but of Western CO2 emissions as the cause of warming, call me a skeptic.

[Fester Chugabrew]

It remains to be seen how this change fits into the greater scheme of things. Just as what goes up must come down, what changes in one direction may necessarily change back the other way.

Furthermore, we can make all kinds of assumptions about the cause, but ultimately there is very little we can do about it. Nor would I attempt forecast the world's human behavior because of it. One day at a time, please.

[Broadside Joe]

By the way, I live in an area that some years ago would put me either under or on top a glacier. It's called 'The land of 10,000 lakes' not because some evil human being dug holes and drained all of the wetlands but because a glacier dug them all out and left water behind as it receded.

[I_love_weather]

YOu do realize that the the folks at Woodshole research have been among the most skeptical anti global warming folks in the world.

They are not kooks...they are not looking for money. These people are on our side.

[I_love_weather]

None of this stuff should be used for politics...that is just wrong.

I am not doing that.

I am just pointing out the facts that something is going wrong. I don't give a damn if a democrat or republican is to blame.

Let's get past that...and read their research and data.

[Broadside Joe]

That doesn't change anything. Facts are stubborn things.

In the same area I spoke of you can find fossils that show evidence of tropical vegetation.

It's all happened before and I'm sure it will happen again.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I am just pointing out the facts that something is going wrong. I don't give a damn if a democrat or republican is to blame. Let's get past that...and read their research and data."

Actually, there IS no data from real-world measurements demonstrating any of the things you are posting about. All of this is based on computer models.

[theFIRMbss]

Well, and just next month
a big budget film opens
based on this premise . . .

[I_love_weather]

ummm no...there is real data as to what is going on with the ocean currents...fresh water vs salt water...and the NAO

Get your facts straight...

This is not all about computer models.

[Wonder Warthog]

"ummm no...there is real data as to what is going on with the ocean currents...fresh water vs salt water...and the NAO"

The supposed RESULT of which is ALL based on computer models.

"Get your facts straight..."

My facts ARE straight:

1) satellite and ballon MEASUREMENTS of temperature around the globe show NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER of warming.

2) the globe was WARMER than it is now during the "Medieval Climate Optimum" (when the Vikings settled Greenland).

Why didn't the Gulf Stream "shut itself down" during that warmer climate period.

"This is not all about computer models."

Yes it is. EVERY "global warming" postulation is based on a computer model, even the "hockey stick" so-called evidence, which has been discredited as "cherry-picking" the data on which it was based.

[Dan(9698)]

According to National Geographic, CO2 has varied between .033 percent and .036 percent of the atmosphere.

It was projected to be many times higher than that by now but it didn't happen. They are trying now to figure out where all the projected CO2 went.

[Dan(9698)]

According to the National Geographic, the CO2 level in the atmosphere has varied between .033 percent and .036 percent.

It was projected to be much higher than that by now. It didn't happen. They are now trying to determine where all the extra CO2 went.

The level is not increasing.

[I_love_weather]

Well I guess we willl sit back and watch and see who is right.

Good luck with your ventures :)

[Dan(9698)]

It wasn't my measurements. The national geographic is a greenie. They are mystified as to why their computer model is wrong.

Everyone else who has a computer model is wrong also.

If the actual measurements are not changing, (the percent has gone down as well as up, you know "varied") then the whole basis for their computer model is in question.

[I_love_weather]

NOAH

[I_love_weather]

All of this would be of no interest to me...had it not been for a series of dreams and visions that I have had over the past year. Something big is coming :) believe it or not! :)

I would just as soon go on with life as normal...

Funny thing is I have met a number of people who have had the same dreams and visions...scary huh :)

NOw you can officially put me in the kook category and be done with it :)

[I_love_weather]

The sad part is my track record with these dreams and visions is 100%

Perhaps God have some people a gift for some reason they do not understand...because I certainly don't.

I forsaw 9/11
I forsaw a killer F4 tornado
I forsaw several earthquakes
I forsaw several middle east events...

I don't wish this forsaw stuff on anyone and I think it is weird...but that is life.


What I forsee is not good...there is a global catastrophe coming...and coming soon.

[Broadside Joe]

"What I forsee is not good...there is a global catastrophe coming...and coming soon."

And even if that were true, it has all happened before.

[Wonder Warthog]

"And even if that were true, it has all happened before."

Boy, THAT's the truth. Think about the effects of the end of the last Ice Age, when sea level REALLY DID increase by a huge amount.

[Jhensy]

That frozen NYC pic ... was that taken today?