Rising Sea Levels: How do the Danes Fare?

[Ouled Nails]

The Dutch will be fighting an uphill battle, with so much of the territory below the sea level. What's the situation like in Denmark? Are most settlements along the coast line? How would a metre of water added to the sea level affect Denmark?

 

[Corno Dolce]

This is interesting - The sea levels are rising and I have a house in Hawaii that is 7 inches above sea level - I ain't seen no rising sea level since I bought the house 17 years ago - Ah yes, more agitation propaganda from the *environment czar* with an office in the West Wing :shake::shake::shake::shake::shake::shake::shake:

 

[Ouled Nails]

Well, you know, lots of permanent ice cover has been melting lately. Before addressing me as a czar, you need to get in touch with all the researchers:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/08/climate-change-flooding

 

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha Ouled Nails,

I wasn't referring to you as a Czar but one of the office inhabitants in the White House(not obama).
If all this permanent ice has been melting then why havent I seen a rise in sea levels - If the sea level goes up in the Netherlands then it also goes up in Hawaii. After all, all the worlds oceans are connected.

Cheerio,

CD

 

[Ouled Nails]

you're a very fast reader, cd.

 

[Corno Dolce]

Thanx ON - I'm quite curious as to the prognostications emanating from the IPCC, the White House, and other political interest groups and action committee's.

 

[Ouled Nails]

And don't forget the U.S. Geological Society, the British Antarctic Scientists, the Dutch government, IOW, the people who follow this stuff.

 

[Corno Dolce]

Oh no, I don't forget them at all - especially living in such an exposed position as Hawaii.

 

[Ouled Nails]

Well, it ain't quite Bangladesh, is it?:grin:

 

[Corno Dolce]

Yeah, but Bangladesh has so many millions more people - They can at least flee inland - we have nowhere to go.

 

[Ouled Nails]

It is surely more than a climatic question. It is basically a philosiphical question. when does one, in the face of all scientific projections and natural occurences, begin to admit that something fundamentally different is happening?

I think that is the question.

 

[Corno Dolce]

An interesting way of framing the question. You mentioned *natural occurences* - Then I must ask: When did the sea level rise? I have lived for 17 years in Hawaii.

 

[Ouled Nails]

If you don't mind, while we're here exchanging philosophical free-floating ideas, do you think that the recent Australian disaster was caused by arsonists?

 

[Corno Dolce]

I don't mind at all dear sir. I recall reading some online Australian newspapers that mention of the Police having captured a suspect-at-large. Apparently he has been charged and is awaiting trial. There might be more who are *fingered* in the ongoing investigation.

 

[Ouled Nails]

An interesting way of framing the question. You mentioned *natural occurences* - Then I must ask: When did the sea level rise? I have lived for 17 years in Hawaii.

A good question. Has it risen? Even if we know as a scientific fact that the ice sheets are retreating in Antarctica and Greenland, should it be rising?

One thing that I have learned from these scientific prognostications, whether they happen or not, is the fascinating fact that when you kids and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up, if this trend continues, the complete melt down of Greenland ice, in itself, will cause the sea to rise seven metres.

This story is not unlike cigarette related cancer. Prove it, said the tobacco producers. Of course, everybody knows that the odds of lung cancer increase exponentially if you consume this poison. Nevertheless, for legalistic purposes, it must be proven without the shadow of a doubt.

So you need proof. I can appreciate that. And the proof is that ice, lots of it, has been melting; that droughts, unprecedented for the last fifty years, are re-occurring with alarming frequency; that violent and destructive storms have been increasing in frequency; that bushfires, such as in Australia, have expanded in number and in magnitude.

All of this might not be noticeable on your beach but it has been occurring globally. Or, perhaps, you need a ten-year perspective on what has been happening to your surroundings, which is not easy to observe because of how we rapidly normalize change.

 

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

If there has been a sea level rise in the Netherlands then there has been a corroborating rise in Hawaii. Since I have lived in Hawaii for seventeen years, the researchers in the Department of Oceanography at University of Hawai'i at Manoa should have recorded a rise in sea level in 2003. The sea levels in the Pacific have been fluctuating +/- a few inches very consistently every summer and winter.

The findings that they discover are shared with all the leaders of the Pacific Islands in the North Pacific and South Pacific and of course, the U.S. Mainland and the Asian Countries.

Cheerio,

CD :tiphat::tiphat::tiphat:

 

[Ouled Nails]

No, not so evenly as you assume, CD, not even in your immediate area, because of subsidence: some land masses sink at a faster pace than others. With respect to what happens to the melting ice once in the oceans, gravitational forces also exert a differential impact around the globe. Finally, thermal expansion, as currrently documented by a satellite, varies a lot from one global area to another.

You are visibly not willing to address the most important reason why scientists now project a more rapid increase in sea levels than previously projected (2007): Where does all the ice sheet melting goes, currently and for the next three generations?

 

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

You have brought up a very good point which I did not - kudos to you. Now then, there is also the variable of land mass that is rising because of upward pressure. Yes, there has been a rising of the Islands too. Even Sweden has been experiencing a rising of land mass.

Of course, I am not a geologist but I can see how land masses rise and sink. We see the subduction zones and how the various *plates* bump into each other. So then, rising and sinking land-masses can be *relational* to rising and sinking sea-levels.

But that then begs another question: Because of pressures inside the Earth there can be rising and sinking of land masses, then there can be the problem of countries losing physical land mass, not just because the relative sea-level rising but the land itself sinks like a Souffle, thus causing a migration of people farther inland to higher ground - Hmmm, it does get interesting. Of course, we can do nothing about geologically sinking land mass on a vast scale.

The implications do put a piquant twist to our lives on Earth, eh? :grin::grin::grin:

 

[Ouled Nails]

There is unquestionably a tendency to over-dramatize climate change (a bit like weather forecasters over-dramatizing forthcoming storms). And human beings aren't the best at observing long-term trends either! We just tend to adapt incrementally and move on with our lives.

Still, if people worldwide kept track of trends, such as increased bushfires and forest fires, with the same interest and attention as they keep track of stock markets, we could be working on strategies and research projects and be credited for such foresight by future generations.

 

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

I really appreciate the exchange we can have on the subject. I just found some interesting data about global temperatures:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/...-flat-temperature-anomaly-in-the-last-decade/


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/...lindzen-on-statistically-significant-warming/

The most respected Atmospheric Physicist alive is Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT. He has published much that all together refutes the alarmism that plagues the current debate. The President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus disputes *warming hysteria* in Europe. His concern is that the EU-crats are using the issue to forcibly control the public.

An interesting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgyEvT_4Kcc

Cheerio,

CD :tiphat::tiphat::tiphat:

Ps: Other very significant sources of emissions that have immediate effects on environment are Volcanoes and volcanic vents both underwater and above-ground. Then of course there is the increase in the size and temperature of the Sun because of the Helium Ash deposited on the Sun's core, which is a by-product of Hydrogen-Burning. A hotter Sun will heat up the Earth, no questions asked. Maybe future generations might need to colonize Mars in order to escape the Earth being baked to a crisp. :grin::grin::grin: You and I will be long-gone before that happens.