Global Sea Level Rise Doubles From 1970s - 1.7 mm/yr To 3/4 mm/year - As Polar Ice Loss Accelerates

[hatrack]

THE ice caps are melting so fast that the world’s oceans are rising more than twice as fast as they were in the 1970s, scientists have found. They have used satellites to track how the oceans are responding as billions of gallons of water reach them from melting ice sheets and glaciers.

The effect is compounded by thermal expansion, in which water expands as it warms, according to the study by Anny Cazenave of the National Centre for Space Studies in France.

These findings come at the same time as a warning from an American academic whose research suggests Labour’s policies to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050 are doomed. Cazenave’s data show that in the past 15 years sea levels have been rising at 3.4mm a year, much faster than the average 1.7mm recorded by tidal gauges over the past 50 years.

Cazenave said: “This rate, observed since the early 1990s, could reflect an acceleration linked to global warming.” Met Office figures suggest sea levels in the Thames could rise 8in-35in by 2100 and possibly by as much as 6ft 6in. Cazenave’s work, just published, will be presented at this week’s American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Chicago.

EDIT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5683655.ece

[Barrett808]

1. Comments at the Times site are discouraging

Still plenty of deniers in Britain.

[spin]

2. Climate changes, we have theories but no real idea why.

The Medieval Warm Period was a time of warm weather around 800-1300 AD during the European Medieval period. Initial research on the MWP and the following Little Ice Age (LIA) was largely done in Europe, where the phenomenon was most obvious and clearly documented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

And of course we have had ice ages:

During the past billion years, the Earth's climate has fluctuated between warm periods - sometimes even completely ice-free - and cold periods, when glaciers scoured the continents. The cold periods - or ice ages - are times when the entire Earth experiences notably colder climatic conditions. During an ice age, the polar regions are cold, there are large differences in temperature from the equator to the pole, and large, continental-size glaciers can cover enormous regions of the earth.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ice/chill.html

Mankind may be causing a change in the climate. On the other hand the changes we see today might be caused by a minor fluctuation in solar output. It is interesting that Mars also seems to be in a warming trend:

Mars is being hit by rapid climate change and it is happening so fast that the red planet could lose its southern ice cap, writes Jonathan Leake.

Scientists from Nasa say that Mars has warmed by about 0.5C since the 1970s. This is similar to the warming experienced on Earth over approximately the same period.

Since there is no known life on Mars it suggests rapid changes in planetary climates could be natural phenomena.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece

But even if mankind's activities are not the major cause of climate change, the pollution we release into the atmosphere is harmful to life on this planet. Merely for heath reasons, we need to move toward green energy. Economic and political reasons are strong arguments for the United States becoming energy independent.