Tag: sea level

Down by the seaside

This year’s NZ Climate Change Centre conference, to be held at Te Papa in Wellington next month, focusses on sea level rise, and how communities can adapt to the inevitable encroachment of the ocean. The organisers have laid on some excellent speakers, include Aussie oceanographer and sea level expert John Church, as well as many directly involved with the issues raised by sea level rise in New Zealand. The conference programme aims to:

  • Present the latest science of sea-level rise associated with climate change, including the role of polar ice-sheet melt
  • Present a synthesis of recent projections for sea-level rise and discuss the uncertainties associated with these projections
  • Identify anticipated impacts on New Zealand coastal environment and infrastructure resulting from climate change
  • Discuss whether adaptive risk management for adapting to sea-level rise will be adequate given the ranges projected and their uncertainties
  • Stimulate discussion of how end-users can manage present and future coastal issues and how social and bio-physical scientists, central and local government, and infrastructure operators can work together with communities to build resilient systems
  • Describe approaches that have been taken to planning coastal futures, which take into account community and resource-user needs underpinned by plausible climate change projections, adaptive approaches to manage uncertainties, and sound approaches to developing coastal policies.

Sounds like a very worthwhile couple of days. It’ll be interesting to hear what the “synthesis of recent projections for sea-level rise” suggests we’re in for, so if any HT readers are planning to attend, I’d be very happy to carry some conference reports.

For what it’s worth, in my view two numbers and one uncomfortable fact are of prime importance. We’re committed to warming, and therefore to sea level rise. The peak level of atmospheric CO2 that we reach (unless we can cut it very quickly after the peak by active carbon removal) will set the final quantum of sea level rise the planet will experience. The latest paleoclimate evidence suggests that current CO2 levels are putting us on course for an eventual 20 metres of sea level rise. Pick your final CO2 concentration, and calibrate against times past. At 300 ppm in the last interglacial, sea level was 6 metres higher than present.

The consequence of where we end up on the atmospheric carbon scale is a long term inevitable and uncomfortable commitment to continuously increasing sea level. It might be enough for some purposes to consider only a metre or two over the the next century, but if you’re planning to rebuild a city, perhaps you should look a little further ahead. Fascinating discussions are in store in Wellington, I confidently predict…

I was lucky enough to attend (and speak) at last year’s conference ((The proceedings of last year’s forum are now available from the NZ CCRI.)), and I’m sure that this year’s effort will be just as worthwhile.

[Zep]

Ignoring the future? Sea level rise and NZ’s planning guidelines

A question-time exchange in the New Zealand Parliament a few days ago seemed worth drawing to the attention of Hot Topic’s readers. Green MP Kennedy Graham (pictured) put this question to the Minister for Climate Change Issues:

Is he concerned by a recent report of an international team of scientists that, even with a two degree Celsius rise in average global temperature, future generations could face sea levels of up to 12 to 22 metres higher than at present?

Kate Wilkinson, the Minister of Conservation, replied on behalf of the Minister for Climate Change Issues:

Yes. The estimates of sea level rise in this report are in line with estimates from the science community over the past few years. But I note that the author himself puts these estimates in context by stating that such changes could take centuries or millennia and that “The current trajectory for the 21st century global rise of sea level is 2 to 3 feet …”.

Graham’s follow-up question pointed out that the current Government guidelines for councils for sea level rise for 2100 are lower than the level estimated by scientists and asked whether the need for correction would be admitted.

Continue reading “Ignoring the future? Sea level rise and NZ’s planning guidelines”

Cartophilia (something to pore over)

Windmap

Click on the image. Wait. Watch and be mesmerised by this visualisation by Hint.fm of current wind flow over the USA. It’s a tremendous way to get a feel for the shape of the weather. Something similarly hypnotic and revealing of weather patterns is the animation of global total precipitable water (that is, atmospheric moisture content) from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisonsin-Madison. I haven’t embedded it because it’s a big animation, but it’s well worth a few bits of bandwidth.

Carbonmap

The Carbon Map is another tour de force of data visualisation — changing the shapes and sizes of countries on a global map to show how they measure on a number of indices: area, population, wealth, historic emissions, current emissions, carbon reserves and so on. The image I’ve grabbed shows the exposure of countries to sea level rise. More about the map and its creation at the Guardian.

Updated to add this amazing NASA animation of global ocean currents over 2005/7. Just look at those whorls spinning off the bottom of Africa…

The Climate Show #25: Box on ice (a polar special)

As the northern hemisphere starts to warm (rather rapidly in the USA), climate watchers’ thoughts turn to melting ice, and to tell us what happened last year and what might be in store this summer, Glenn and Gareth welcome back Greenland expert Jason Box from the Byrd Polar research Centre at Ohio State University. It’s a wide ranging and fascinating discussion, not to be missed. John Cook looks at the differences between sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, and we have news coverage of the new HadCRUT4 global temperature series, summertime in winter in the USA, worrying news about sea level from the Pliocene, a new report on climate change in the Pacific, and new developments in solar power and biofuels.

Watch The Climate Show on our Youtube channel, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, listen to us via Stitcher on your smartphone or listen direct/download from the link below the fold.

Follow The Climate Show at The Climate Show web site, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Continue reading “The Climate Show #25: Box on ice (a polar special)”

Kiwiblog kobblers

New Zealand’s leading right wing blogger, National Party spinmeister and opinion poll guru David Farrar, this morning allowed himself the luxury of a rant about the New Zealand Herald‘s coverage of a new paper on sea level during the late Pliocene. In a post teasingly titled “Alarmist bullshit“, he manages to demonstrate his rudimentary grasp of the facts, misunderstands the real story behind the new research, and ends up shooting himself in the foot. Here’s David in full flow:

Anyone who thinks public policy today should be based on a forecast of what the climate might be in 5,000 years is nuts. Look at how the world has changed in just 100 years let alone hundreds or thousands. Hell in 1,000 years we may be living on Mars.

The Herald should be ashamed for saying that the projected increase could “dramatically transform” our coastal boundaries. A change over 1,000 years+ is not dramatic. It’s like saying the separation of Gondwana was dramatic.

20 metres is a lot of sea level rise. Here’s what 20 metres would mean for my nearest city, poor old quake-plagued Christchurch, courtesy of the Firetree sea level rise calculator. The central business district is under water, the new shoreline well to the west. At a rough guess, I’d say 80% of the city is flooded, and Banks Peninsula is an island once more.

I think that can be reasonably described as a dramatic transformation of the South Island coastline, even if it does take 1,000 years to happen. DPF might like to note that coping with two metres per century sea level rise is nobody’s picnic. But his misunderstanding runs deeper…

Continue reading “Kiwiblog kobblers”