Renewable Revolution

June 26, 2017



Environmental activist Peter Sinclair examines the growing threat of sea level rise

SNIPPET from the video interview:

The IPCC estimate relied on the notion that expanding ocean waters and the melting of relatively small glaciers would fuel the majority of sea level rise, rather than the massive ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. It turns out, however, that scientists were underestimating the rate at which the giant ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland were melting. About one month ago, scientists increased their estimates of sea level rise even further. New research, including from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, increased the plausible sea level rise maximum to as much as 2.7 meters. Thus, in the space of a mere five years, the scientific community nearly tripled its estimate of maximum sea level rise under a business-as-usual scenario.

These three estimates in maximum plausible sea level rise received extensive media coverage, but the far more alarming scientific estimate has received little, if any, attention as far as we can tell at The Real News.

Earlier this year, NASA scientist Eric Rignot: gave a presentation in which he predicted that if we experience global warming in the range of 1.5 degrees Celsius to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, we are committing the planet to sea level rise of six to nine meters. Moreover, according to Dr. Rignot, sea level rise of that magnitude may occur within the next 100 to 200 years. Let's listen to some of what Dr. Rignot had to say
.
Eric Rignot: By 2100, more than one meter, very likely. This is not a futuristic situation. It's on pace now. The irony of this is when we started talking about this 10 years ago, everybody was raising eyebrows, one meter sea level rise. You're crazy, right? Now it's common knowledge. I watch these interviews. Everybody says, "Yeah, one meter sea level rise per century." Sometimes I even want to say, "Which publication are you referring to?" Twitter. Twitter. Sea level rise commitments, to me that was probably one of the biggest news in the last decade. We see a lot of happening in the ice sheets, but the [inaudible 00:03:00] coming very strong and clearly and saying, "If you warm the climate this much, it's six to nine meters."


Read full transcript at the link below:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19241