How America would look like after a 12 feet rise in water...

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -feet.html

Scientists warn that vast glaciers in West Antarctica are locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming – and now incredible images show the effect the melt would have on some of the U.S’s classic coastal city areas.

Experts say the melt could add 12 feet (1.2 to 3.7 meters) to current sea levels in a few hundred years and the images illustrate the impact this increase would have on cities including Miami, Boston and San Francisco.

The photographs were developed by Pittsburgh-based digital artist Nickolay Lamm, based on sea level-rise mapping data from Climate Central.

In the shocking pictures the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C is surrounded by water, Ocean Drive in Miami looks like it would only be navigable by boat and Crissy Field in San Francisco is mostly under water.

And you'd need waders to walk around The San Diego Convention Center, according to the predictions.

A Nasa study looking at 40 years of ground, airplane and satellite data shows the melt is happening faster than scientists had predicted, crossing a critical threshold that has begun a domino-like process.

Some scientists believe that a build-up of man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is affecting wind patterns around Antarctica, driving warmer waters towards the continent.

Bob Ward, from the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at London School of Economics and Political Science, said: 'Although such extreme sea level rise is only likely to occur after several centuries of global warming, these startling images should help U.S politicians and the public to understand the scale of the risks created by climate change.'

Fantastic pictures in the article! Who says the Daily Mail doesn't do climate changing reporting!!!

[BritDownUnder]

There's a Google Earth type map that you can set a certain sea level rise and when you give the UK a 50 metre rise it becomes very frightening looking. I understand that if all Antarctica melted it would be a 70 metre rise but the East Antarctica ice sheet where the bulk of the ice is is thought to be stable for a few thousand years at least.

As some consolation to people in the UK, with a 50 metre rise, my house in Australia will also be flooded.

[RenewableCandy]

Oh but the DM love apocalyptic pics, remember all those abandonned rooms they were showing a short while back?

Anyway, anyone who's ever been to "THE DEEP" in Hull can have a go at a big interactive map where you can wind up the sea level (from today's levels all the way up to the full 70 metres Icecap Melt) and watch Hull (and indeed most of Yorkshire, taking a large part of Great Britain with it) disappear into the sea.

It's fecking sobering, I can tell you. The kids asked me to stop it because it was too upsetting for them.

[vtsnowedin]

At 1700 feet above present sea level I'll be high and dry but that would be small consolation if much of the economy I depend on more then I might think goes under. And then there will be all the new neighbors coming in from their former homes that are now washed away to deal with. I expect they will be a testy lot. But My children and theirs will have to deal with this as it won't happen before I'm long gone.

[PS_RalphW]

My ten metre altitude would survive the Greenland ice cap melting, but not much more.

[biffvernon]

I live below sea level twice a day, at high tide.

Yo for the Environment Agency coastal defence management engineers.

[clv101]

These two sea level rise papers are interesting as they raise really fundamental questions about human civilisation. Several meters SLR within several hundred years seems likely (with West Antartica, Greenland, other glaciers and ice caps, and thermal expansion), which will make many costal cities, a good chunk of Bangladesh and a lot of high quality agricultural land untenable. Massive change probably won't happen in our lifetimes (mostly just more frequent and higher storm surges) assuming existing costal defences are maintained but the writing's on the wall for some of our great centres of culture/civilisation.

[vtsnowedin]

These two sea level rise papers are interesting as they raise really fundamental questions about human civilisation. Several meters SLR within several hundred years seems likely (with West Antartica, Greenland, other glaciers and ice caps, and thermal expansion), which will make many costal cities, a good chunk of Bangladesh and a lot of high quality agricultural land untenable. Massive change probably won't happen in our lifetimes (mostly just more frequent and higher storm surges) assuming existing costal defences are maintained but the writing's on the wall for some of our great centres of culture/civilisation.

As the most likely rate of SLR is spread over a century I expect such places as Bangladesh and Florida to become more and more like the Netherlands today. The Netherlands and some Pacific atolls are the places that face the grimmest future if these predictions prove accurate.

[biffvernon]

I expect such places as Bangladesh and Florida to become more and more like the Netherlands today. The Netherlands and some Pacific atolls are the places that face the grimmest future if these predictions prove accurate.

The Netherlands had the wealth to build defences and continue to have the wealth to maintain them. That is not so certain for Bangladesh. The Netherlands are built of impermeable clay - build a wall and the sea stays out. Florida is built on sand - build a wall and the sea flows underneath it and wets you from behind.

I conclude that the Netherlands will last a lot longer than either Bangladesh or Florida.

[emordnilap]

The likelihood of all ice melting is extremely remote.

[Mean Mr Mustard]

The likelihood of all ice melting is extremely remote.

But an ice free Arctic in Summer months - which looks inevitable - might help to concentrate minds. Granted, that doesn't raise sea level, which is just as well...

[vtsnowedin]

I expect such places as Bangladesh and Florida to become more and more like the Netherlands today. The Netherlands and some Pacific atolls are the places that face the grimmest future if these predictions prove accurate.

The Netherlands had the wealth to build defences and continue to have the wealth to maintain them. That is not so certain for Bangladesh. The Netherlands are built of impermeable clay - build a wall and the sea stays out. Florida is built on sand - build a wall and the sea flows underneath it and wets you from behind.

I conclude that the Netherlands will last a lot longer than either Bangladesh or Florida.

Point taken on the sand in Florida. And of course the US is large enough to just retreat back and let it become a fishing bank if the cost to save it became too high. All those McManchions will make excellent fish habitate.

[3rdRock]

What would America look like after a 12' rise in water level?

BETTER!