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All scientist Erin Pettit could see when she looked at the satellite photos of the ice shelf in front of the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica was the giant crack that stretched across most of the image. Two years before, when she and her colleagues were deciding where to put their research camp, the entire floating ice shelf—a tongue of ice poking out from the enormous glacier behind it—was solid. It was plenty safe to plan a camp there, they thought...... The size of Florida, the Thwaites Glacier holds enough ice to raise global sea levels two feet. It’s also...

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Imagine a forest the size of Raleigh and Durham. Now imagine a forest that size dying every single year. It’s an unfortunate reality that’s happening right now across the North American Coastal Plain, including part of our backyard here in North Carolina. Our North Carolina beaches are a popular vacation spot or weekend getaway where we soak up the sun and relax to the sound of waves. But just a few miles inland, our coastal wetlands are facing a crisis. Vulnerable ecosystems are changing, and trees are dying, leaving nothing but ghosts. “A ghost forest I...

It's massive, it's collapsing due to global warming, and when it goes, sea levels are going to rise by a significant amount, perhaps by 10 feet. "All signs point to (the eventuality that) we're not going to keep this glacier from collapsing," said Villanova University Vice President, Chief Research Officer, and Chemistry Professor Amanda Grannas about the glacier that she said is about the size of Florida. "Part of the weights actually extends out over the ocean. So part of the ice is floating on top of the ocean water, and part of it's located over land." Dr. Grannas said...

Rising sea levels may be seen as a very modern phenomenon, but according to a new study, it really became a significant issue more than 150 years ago. Researchers have studied a global database of sea-level records spanning the last 2,000 years, based on archeological and biological evidence at global sites. These sites include Pelham Bay in New York, Cheesequake in New Jersey, Vioarholmi in Iceland, Aasiaat in Greenland and Loch Laxford in Scotland. Modern rates of sea level rise began emerging in 1863 following the Industrial Revolution, coinciding with evidence for early ocean warming and glaciers melting, the experts...

Off the coast of England, there's a tiny, wind-swept island with the remains of a lifeboat rescue station from the mid-1800s. The workers who once ran the station on Hilbre Island did something that, unbeknownst to them, has become crucial for understanding the future of a hotter climate: They recorded the tides. The data, scrawled in long, handwritten ledgers, is just one example of the tens of thousands of pages of tidal measurements stored in archives around the world. Now, scientists and historians are racing to digitize them in an effort to understand how fast oceans are rising. The aging...

Imagine driving along a four-lane elevated causeway above the brackish San Pablo Bay, shaving more than an hour off the normal Highway 37 commute. Transportation planners have for years envisioned remaking the 20-mile route from Novato to Vallejo into the North Bay’s most important east-west corridor. Now, they are ready to act. Officials in Marin, Sonoma, Napa and Solano counties have been meeting for several years, pondering solutions to Highway 37’s notorious bottlenecks, where 45,000 cars per day stretch the normal 20-minute commute to as much as 100 minutes. They have also acknowledged that traffic improvements will be irrelevant without...

Environmental officials warned 30 years ago the Maldives could be completely covered by water due to global warming-induced sea level rise. That didn’t happen. The Indian Ocean did not swallow the Maldives island chain as predicted by government officials in the 1980s. In September 1988, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported a “gradual rise in average sea level is threatening to completely cover this Indian Ocean nation of 1196 small islands within the next 30 years,” based on predictions made by government officials. Then-Environmental Affairs Director Hussein Shihab told AFP “an estimated rise of 20 to 30 centimetres in the next...

Miami-Dade commissioners on Wednesday gave preliminary approval to extending the 836 expressway 14 miles into West Kendall, rejecting warnings about environmental damage and urban sprawl in favor of bringing relief to commuters in the congested suburbs. "We've got to start somewhere," said Commissioner Javier Souto, whose district includes western areas in the county. "Do something. Do something." A final vote awaits later this year, but the 9-2 vote captured what appeared to be broad support for the signature transportation package from Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who cited the toll road's extension as a top priority as he prepares to leave office...

The Trump administration is seeking to slash the budget of one of the government’s premier climate science agencies by 17 percent, delivering steep cuts to research funding and satellite programs, according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post. The proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would also eliminate funding for a variety of smaller programs, including external research, coastal management, estuary reserves and “coastal resilience,” which seeks to bolster the ability of coastal areas to withstand major storms and rising seas. NOAA is part of the Commerce Department, which would be hit by an overall 18 percent budget reduction from...

New analysis and graphing tools for sea-level data at SeaLevel.infoGuest essay by David Burtonhttp://www.SeaLevel.info now has interactive regression analysis (line/curve fitting) and visualization (graphing) tools available for mean sea level (MSL) measurements from over 1200 tide gauges, plus spreadsheets which combine various subsets of that data. This article is intended as a primer, for how to use these new tools.But first, a few notes:Note #1: This is a work in progress. I already have a large “to-do list,” but suggestions & corrections are nevertheless very welcome.Note #2: These tools are my free contribution to the community. There’s no charge...

Since atmospheric CO2 emission levels do not correlate with such changes prior to the industrial age, the upward trend in temperature and sea level will continue regardless of the political campaign to impose economy-destroying carbon asceticism on the world’s population ...

Quack! Quack! Be advised that the article you are about to read did not appear in The Onion. However, it is completely understandable if that is what you think because the story, which appeared in the U.K. Telegraph, takes Global Warming Alarmism to such an extreme that it has passed from the absolutely absurd into the completely hilarious. Just how laughable is the article? So funny that The Telegraph science editor, Sarah Knapton seriously quotes a (quack?) scientist proposing that the rise of sea levels could cause humans to evolve webbed hands and feet: The perils of climate change are...

Miami-Dade County’s task force on rising seas wants the county mayor to take the reins on the mounting problem and will propose a suite of resolutions before commissioners on Wednesday to address the issue. The measures will serve as “marching orders” to increase the county’s response to sea rise, County Commissioner Rebeca Sosa said during a meeting with Miami Herald editors last week. She sponsored the legislation carrying out the task force recommendations as one of her last acts as commission chairwoman. The resolutions ask Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez to take formal oversight and dedicate staff and resources to shepherd...

The world’s oceans are now rising far faster than they did in the past, a new study says. The study found that for much of the 20th century — until about 1990 — sea level was about 30 percent less than earlier research had figured. But that’s not good news, scientists say, because about 25 years ago the seas started rising faster and the acceleration in 1990 turns out to be more dramatic than previously calculated.

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Nils‐Axel Mörner has a new paper out (his 589th). For 60 years he has been tracking the coastlines close to him, and carefully isolated the exact part which appears to be the most stable. From that he shows that the real sea-level rise in Northern Europe is less than 1 millimeter a year since 1890. This is less that the 1.6mm trend in 182 NOAA tide gauges, and far below the estimates of the IPCC reports.There is also no sign of acceleration in sea-levels for the last 50 years. (How much should Europeans spend to stop a 1mm annual...

Driving the seemingly endless climate-treaty negotiations, the most widely feared consequence of Global Warming appears to be a catastrophic rise in sea level (SLR). Environmental advocacy groups are filling the airwaves with lurid images of flooding of Bangladesh and Pacific islands, and raising the specter of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees demanding care and compensation. Even sober scientists, while not endorsing such obvious scare stories, predict an acceleration of the ongoing global rise, which a system of tidal gauges places at about 18 cm (7 inches) during the 20th century. Economists concerned with trying to estimate a 'social cost'...

The most widely feared consequence of global warming appears to be sea level rise (SLR). Environmental advocacy groups are polluting the airwaves and internet with lurid images of flooding of Bangladesh and Pacific islands, and raising the specter of hundreds of millions of environmental refugees. Even sober scientists... --snip-- The first clue that there might be something amiss with the IPCC logic comes from the IPCC report itself. According to this authoritative source, the contribution to SLR of the past century comes mainly from three sources: (i) thermal expansion of the warming ocean contributed about 4 cm; (ii) the melting...

Gov. Martin O'Malley signed an executive order Friday to increase Maryland's long-term resiliency to storm-related flooding and sea level rise. **SNIP** "As storms such as Hurricane Sandy have shown, it is vital that we commit our resources and expertise to create a ready and resilient Maryland by taking the necessary steps to adapt to the rising sea and unpredictable weather," O'Malley said. "In studying and planning for storms and climate change, we can ensure that our land, infrastructure, and most importantly our citizens are safe and prepared."

Scientists are increasingly confident that the uptick in heat waves and heavier rainfall is linked to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, posing a heightened risk to the world’s population, according to two reports issued in the past week. On Wednesday, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a 594-page study suggesting that when it comes to weather observations since 1950 there has been a “change in some extremes,” which stem in part from global warming. [text excerpted] But the IPCC team projects that there is a 90 to 100 percent probability that sea level rise “will contribute to upward trends...