Sea Level Rise: Up, Up and Away!

June 24, 2012 Leave a Comment

Sea levels, after several thousand years of little or no change, began to rise steadily in the early 1900s, trailing the Industrial Revolution and the increased use of fossil fuels by decades.  Projections for future rise vary from difficult to catastrophic.  A report released on Friday, June 22, 2010 by the National Research Council, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, has occasioned  a spate of articles, with only a few making it to the front pages.  SF Chronicle: David Perlman; Newser;  AFP;  NY Times (using AP)

The West Coast papers emphasize the difference in expected sea level rise in the California of the San Andreas fault, and the California north of Cape Mendocino, Oregon and Washington which rides up over the subsiding Juan de Fuca ocean plate.

For the California coast south of Cape Mendocino, the committee projects that sea level will rise 4–30 cm [1.6"-11.8"] by 2030 relative to 2000, 12–61 cm [4.7"- 24"] by 2050, and 42–167 cm [16.5" - 65.7"] by 2100. For the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts north of Cape Mendocino, sea level is projected to change between -4 cm (sea-level fall) and +23 cm by 2030, -3 cm and +48 cm by 2050, and 10–143 cm by 2100.

 On the East Coast attention is focused on a 600 mile “hot spot“ from Cape Hatteras to Boston where a second report, from the U.S. Geological Service, says the sea is rising 3-4 times faster than the global average.

In absolute figures, sea levels on this stretch of coast have climbed by between 2 and 3.7 millimetres per year since 1980, whereas the global increase over the same period was 0.6–1.0 millimetres per year.

The existence of the hotspot is consistent with the measured slowing of Atlantic Ocean circulation, which may be tied to changes in water temperature, salinity and density in the subpolar north of the ocean.

The researchers predicted that by 2100, sea levels in the hotspot would rise by between 20 and 29 centimetres above the global increase, which most oceanographers predict will be about one metre.

The meat of the NRC report is here:

Sea-level change is one of the most visible consequences of changes in the Earth’s climate.
A warming climate causes global sea level to rise principally by (1) warming the oceans, which
causes sea water to expand, increasing ocean volume, and (2) melting land ice, which transfers
water to the ocean. Tide gage and satellite observations show that global sea level has risen an
average of about 1.7 mm yr over the 20th century (Bindoff et al., 2007), which is a significant
increase over rates of sea-level rise during the past few millennia (Shennan and Horton, 2002;
Gehrels et al., 2004). Projections suggest that sea level will continue to rise in the future (Figure
1.1). However, the rate at which sea level is changing varies from place to place and with time.
Along the west coast of the United States, sea level is influenced by changes in global mean sea
level as well as by regional changes in ocean circulation and climate patterns such as El Niño;
gravitational and deformational effects of ice age and modern ice mass changes; and uplift or
subsidence along the coast. The relative importance of these factors in any given area determines
whether the local sea level will rise or fall and how fast it will change.


FIGURE 1.1 Estimated, observed, and projected global sea-level rise from 1800 to 2100. The pre-1900 record is based on geological evidence, and the observed record is from tide gages (red line) and satellite altimetry (blue line). Example projections of sea-level rise to 2100 are from IPCC (2007) global climate models (pink shaded area) and semi-empirical methods (gray shaded area; Rahmstorf, 2007). SOURCES: Adapted from Shum et al. (2008), Willis et al. (2010), and Shum and Kuo (2011)

The report was requested by ten state and federal agencies including 4 in California (see ix of the report) which want the best information for planning purposes — unlike the North Carolina Senate which recently passed a bill regulating which measurements were to be used in calculating sea-rise.  [It appears that the scorn storm breached the walls of idiocy and the bill has now been re-written, having been resoundingly rejected by the NC House.]

Here’s a handy little map device to drill down to your back yard and see how sea level rise might affect you (This is a linear plot, so it doesn’t take in the variances reported on above.  Interesting nevertheless.]

Filed under Climate Change, Oceans Tagged with , ,

Single Payer to the Rescue

June 23, 2012 Leave a Comment

“In 2009 when the Washington beltway was tied up with the health care reform tussle, Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the all powerful Senate Finance Committee, said everything was on the table–except for single payer. When doctors, nurses and others rose in his hearing to insist that single payer be included in the debate, Baucus had them arrested. As more stood up, Baucus could be heard on his open microphone saying, “We need more police.”

Yet when Senator Baucus needed a solution to a catastrophic health disaster in Libby, Montana, and surrounding Lincoln County, he turned to the nation’s single payer healthcare system, Medicare, to solve the problem.”

Read All –Stunning

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Climate Change Worse Than Realized

June 22, 2012 Leave a Comment

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 21 (Xinhua) — Carlo Rubbia, who shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics, says global warming is a much bigger problem than most people realize.

“My message is that the situation is much worse than one sees and believes,” Rubbia, an Italian particle physicist and inventor, told Xinhua in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20 Earth Summit).

Rubbia mentioned two “contradictory phenomena” — global warming and the aerosol masking effect which effectively offset the effects of the former.

Otherwise, the temperature of the Earth would have increased to about three degrees centigrade by now, he said.

“The man in the street does not realize the effects of climate change,” because in the last 10 years, the temperature did not increase substantially. So “people feel the pressure of global warming is not a reality,” he said.

 

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Wild Conspiracy Theories in the GOP

June 22, 2012 Leave a Comment

From Think Progress:

“Here is theory that some Congressional Republicans believe: The Obama Administration intentionally handed over automatic weapons to Mexican drug cartels, who they knew would commit violent acts, because they wanted to scare Americans into supporting stricter gun laws.

“That supposed series of events has now led Congress to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt.

The man who started the conspiracy theory also rallied people to break congressional windows. Mike Vanderboegh, a man who once called for militias to break the windows of members of Congress because of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, started this conspiracy theory. Rachel Maddow uncovered that Vanderboegh has been encouraging members of Congress to embrace the theory.

Major Republicans, including Darrell Issa, endorse this conspiracy theory. Among those are Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is Chair of the House Oversight Committee and is heading up the investigation of Eric Holder. In an interview on FOX, Issa said, “very clearly, they made a crisis, and they’re using this crisis to somehow take away or limit people’s Second Amendment rights.” He alsopushed the theory at an NRA convention. But Issa isn’t the only one who is buying in: former Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich just two days agoagreed with the theory. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), and many other Republicans have voiced support for this theory too.

Read the whole stupefying thing…

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Tahrir Square, Redux

June 20, 2012 Leave a Comment

Despite the fears of some for an Islamic party taking power in Egypt through elections, the Army retains its role as the most feared.  Tens of thousands showed up in Tahrir square to protest its recent re-write of the constitution and giving itself all final power. (Slide show linked to photo…)

The generals’ moves were denounced across the political spectrum here as a military coup, Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Filed under Africa, Citizen Action Tagged with ,

Immigrants: Give Us Your Poor

June 20, 2012 Leave a Comment

Immigration has always been.  From Ionian Greeks being pushed out of the mainland and colonizing the western shores of Anatolia about 1,000 BCE to impoverished Africans desperately moving north into Europe today.  I don’t know about the tribes who had to accommodate the Greeks but surely in most places and most times the resentment of those who immigrated earlier towards those who arrive later, is a constant.  We’ve seen a whole lot of such resentment in the United States, by children of immigrants themselves, towards the most recent “other.”

In fact, I recently “fired” a client where I do computer work, after I could no longer take a senior employee’s rants about the evils of immigrants.  And it turns out, all of his “facts” are false.  From an article in the NY Times:

… in the regions where immigrants have settled in the past two decades, crime has gone down, cities have grown, poor urban neighborhoods have been rebuilt, and small towns that were once on life support are springing back.

Scholars can’t say for sure that immigration caused these positive developments, but we know enough to debunk the notion that immigrants worsen social ills.

For example, in rural counties that experienced an influx of immigrants in the 1980s and ’90s, crime rates dropped by more than they did in rural counties that did not see high immigrant growth.

 

 

Despite what many know, that immigrants are overwhelmingly a benefit to the communities they are part of,  deportation has picked up speed under this so-called left-wing president.  And with it the human hurt.  The NY Times has done  a very fine article about the increasing rate of south-bound border crossing, sweeping along with it American kids.

In all, 1.4 million Mexicans — including about 300,000 children born in the United States — moved to Mexico between 2005 and 2010, according to Mexican census figures. That is roughly double the rate of southbound migration from 1995 to 2000, and new government data published this month suggest that the flow is not diminishing. The result is an entire generation of children who blur the line between Mexican and American.

And finally, speaking of immigrants, here is Nate Silver’s intelligent take on whether President Obama’s suspension of deportations for some n0n-citizen aliens will have an effect on the upcoming election.

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Guns Again in Turkey

June 20, 2012 Leave a Comment

The Kurdistan Tribune reports, sources unknown, that the PKK attacked a Turkish security outpost in the south eastern corner of Turkey.

The PKK had vowed to attack more Turkish military posts in revenge for the recent new wave of  arrests and harassment of Kurdish activists across the north of Kurdistan.

Followed, naturally enough, by  a bombing raid on Kurdish areas by the Turkish military.

The NY Times reports that Turkish ground troops went in hot-pursuit over the border into Iraq:

NTV, a private television network, said 600 Turkish ground troops chasing the attackers pushed 2.5 miles into northern Iraq, where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant separatist group known as the P.K.K., is based. The group has long battled the Turkish government for autonomy in the predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Local media also reported Turkish air deployments and artillery fire in the mountainous border area.

The militant strike, which started in the early hours of Wednesday, mainly in Hakkari Province, lasted for about four hours. It came a day after a blast in Bitlis, another southeastern province, that killed five policemen and three civilians.

Hurriyet Daily, from Istanbul, reports on the attack and counterattacks, with statements coming from the main political parties.

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Nuns On the Bus – Protesting Welfare Cuts

June 20, 2012 Leave a Comment

From ThinkProgress.org: 

“A group of Roman Catholic nuns kicked off a nine-state bus tour across the Midwest this morning in an effort to highlight the cuts to safety net programs contained in the House Republican budget authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), himself an outspoken Catholic. The bus tour began this morning in Iowa and includes a Tuesday stop in Ryan’s Wisconsin district.

 

“Along the tour, the nuns will stop at food pantries, shelters, schools, and hospitals to highlight the impact of the cuts. They will also visit the offices of ten Republicans who voted for the budget, including Ryan and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), another outspoken Catholic. The purpose is to draw attention the work the nuns have done on behalf of poor Americans and thedevastating impact the Republican cuts would have on those who rely on safety net programs, Sister Simone Campbell told the New York Times…”

As one of the signs held up in support of the effort said: You Go Girls!

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Miners Striking in Northern Spain

June 20, 2012 Leave a Comment

The conservative Spanish government has slashed long time state subsidies of the coal mining industry, threatening entire villages with an end to their way of life.  Fair enough, say the free-market cult.  Let the market decide.  From the other hand, however, the government river of money to the banks has been wide and deep.  The “market” in the streets says this is not to be borne.

 Spanish coal miners burned tyres and blocked roads on Monday during a mass strike to protest against subsidy cuts that they say threaten tens of thousands of jobs.

Tens of thousands of people marched in the northern towns of Leon and Langreo in the latest in a month of protests. The strike was also called in some 50 other mining towns.

Spain’s cash-strapped central government has slashed subsidies to the coal sector this year to 111 million euros ($142 million) from 301 million euros last year, part of wide-ranging cuts to lower its deficit.

The miners say this is unfair especially when the government has also sought billions of euros to stabilise its banking sector.

 AFP

The fires, slingshots and even home-made rockets used by some of the miners, after the Guardia Civil advanced on crowds firing rubber bullets, have appeared after weeks of alarm and rising resistance to the “austerity” measures [austerity should always be understood as austerity-for-you-but-not-for us.]  The two big unions, the UGCT and CCCO, called for an open-ended strike at  [in Spanish] the mines, in late May.  This followed weeks of sporadic work stoppages and protests in mines and mining communities throughout Austurias.

Of course, not only are the protests shaking up Spain and the government there, they will not go un-noticed in other countries where the austerity-for-you-but-not-for-me leaders are striking up the bands and shouldering their rifles.

 

Filed under Economy, Labor / Unions Tagged with , , ,

On Those “Lazy” Greeks….

June 18, 2012 Leave a Comment

From Paul Krugman, the day after the squeaker election on Sunday:

  …many things you hear about Greece just aren’t true. The Greeks aren’t lazy — on the contrary, they work longer hours than almost anyone else in Europe, and much longer hours than the Germans in particular. Nor does Greece have a runaway welfare state, as conservatives like to claim; social expenditure as a percentage of G.D.P., the standard measure of the size of the welfare state, is substantially lower in Greece than in, say, Sweden or Germany, countries that have so far weathered the European crisis pretty well.

So how did Greece get into so much trouble? Blame the euro.

And, as he says at the end, the election “ended up settling nothing.”  Or, it kicked the can further down the road.  Baring a miracle far greater than multiplying loaves for a few thousand, a reckoning will come due, well within our life-times.

Markets rejoicing short lived.

Kicking the Can.

for more Krugman, here’s some couched praise by Economist writer, Matthew Bishop of Krugman’s new book: End This Depression Now!

Longtime readers of Krugman will know there are at least two of him. One is the gifted winner of the Nobel in economic science, respected throughout the academy for his mastery of the dismal science; the other, the populist polemicist and baiter of the right who writes columns in The New York Times. “End This Depression Now!” is a collaborative effort by the two Krugmen. Professor Krugman usefully contributes plenty of mainstream economics in support of his stimulus plan and in order to debunk the idea that austerity policies in today’s circumstances can boost an economy by increasing confidence. (As he points out, Britain, the leading country to embrace austerity voluntarily, is hardly setting the world on fire.) Yet no opportunity to preach to the choir is missed by the populist Mr. Krugman, nor any chance to mock those he calls the “Very Serious People” who disagree with him.

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