Sea Here, Young Man

We’ve heard it all before, and there remain a number of skeptics, but a recently-released report, conducted at the Sea Level Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, confirms that sea levels are rising today at the fastest level in history. A Penn team, led by Associate Professor Benjamin Horton from Department of Earth and Environmental Science, studied the history of sea level change by examining the physical evidence, specifically off the U.S. Atlantic coast in under-examined areas like North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The team applied techniques such as measuring “microfossil transfer rates” using advanced radiocarbon dating and combined “tide gauge and high-precision geological reconstructions of relative sea-level.”

The report is the first of its kind to summarize the continuous history of sea level rise since the time of Christ: “Looking back in history, the researchers found that sea level was relatively stable from 100 B.C. to A.D. 950. Then, during a warm climate period beginning in the 11th century, sea level rose by about half a millimeter per year for 400 years. That was followed by a second period of stable sea level associated with a cooler period, known as the Little Ice Age, which persisted until the late 19th century…The researchers found that since the late 19th century – as the world became industrialized – sea level has risen more than 2 millimeters per year, on average. That's a bit less than one-tenth of an inch, but it adds up over time.” Huffington Post, June 22^nd. According to Horton’s work, the movement of sea level is associated with temperature change, which many experts believe is the inevitable result of carbon emissions creating a greenhouse effect forcing increasing global warming.

Horton’s report avoided predicting the future, but other experts, like Kenneth Miller, chairman of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University (the State University of New Jersey, note the importance of the University of Pennsylvania’s research: “‘This is a very important contribution because it firmly establishes that the rise in sea level in the 20th century is unprecedented for the recent geologic past,’ said Miller, who was not part of the research team. Miller said he recently advised New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie that the state needs to plan for a sea level rise of about 3 feet by the end of the century.” Huffington Post.

But a uniform rate of sea level change, even and predictable, may not be so easily calculated. For example, as giant icebergs melt and glaciers slide into the sea, the earth loses both the cooling factor of vast white surfaces reflecting sunlight back up into the atmosphere but increases the darker, heat-absorbing ocean surface as a result. While natural occurrences (e.g., very large volcanic clouds) can reverse the heating trend for a time (causing other havoc), they are difficult to predict. Thus, there could be a very slow beginning to the irreversibly rising tides that accelerates rapidly as time passes and more ice melts.

Flooding of oceanfront communities, especially high-density cities, and loss of fresh water river resources as salt water pushes inland are two of the most cited consequences of rising seas. Some however believe that God will prevent these results, while others believe it is simply too late to stop the phenomena. A minority of Christians, for example, believe in an implied Biblical promise not to repeat the catastrophic flood that launched Noah’s ark or in the notion that the earth was given to t hem by God to use however they want (as “stewards” of the earth) – even use up all the natural resources – since God will be creating a new restored earth in the “end of times.” On the other hand, some environmentalists feel that it is too late to stop the rising seas, but that prudent cutbacks in fossil fuel emissions can at least ameliorate the degree of damage.

The vast majority of climate-trained scientists have their position as well. Two of the co-authors of the Penn report, for example, “calculated in an earlier paper that sea level could rise by between 30 and 75 inches by the end of this century. And it might even rise faster than that, Martin Vermeer of Aalto University in Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact reported in 2009… ‘Accurate estimates of past sea-level variability provide a context for such projections,’ co-author Andrew Kemp of Yale University's Climate and Energy Institute said in a statement.” Whatever your beliefs, suborning disease-causing and lifestyle debilitating pollution in the name of encouraging global economic growth would seem to be exceptionally short-sighted.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the more we know, the better we can design solutions to maximize our future.