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from the a-rising-ocean-floods-all-ports dept.
The University of New South Wales (Australia) is reporting on research [abstract;full article paywalled] by an international team led by Dr Nicholas Golledge, a senior research fellow at New Zealand's Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre. According to the article, a jump in global average temperatures of 1.5°C–2°C will see the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves and lead to hundreds and even thousands of years of sea level rise. It goes on to say:
Using state-of-the-art computer modelling, Dr Golledge and his colleagues including researchers from UNSW simulated the ice-sheet's response to a warming climate under a range of greenhouse gas emission scenarios. They found in all but one scenario (that of significantly reduced emissions beyond 2020) large parts of the Antarctic ice-sheet were lost, resulting in a substantial rise in global sea-level. "The long reaction time of the Antarctic ice-sheet – which can take thousands of years to fully manifest its response to changes in environmental conditions – coupled with the fact that CO₂ lingers in the atmosphere for a very long time means that the warming we generate now will affect the ice sheet in ways that will be incredibly hard to undo," Dr Golledge said.
[...] "Around 93% of the heat from anthropogenic global warming has gone into the ocean, and these warming ocean waters are now coming into contact with the floating margins of the Antarctic ice sheet, known as ice shelves. If we lose these ice shelves, the Antarctic contribution to sea-level rise by 2100 will be nearer 40 centimetres." To avoid the loss of the Antarctic ice shelves, and a long-term commitment to many metres of sea-level rise, atmospheric warming needs to be kept below 2°C above present levels. "Missing the 2°C target will result in an Antarctic contribution to sea-level rise that could be up to 10 metres higher than today," Dr Golledge said. "The stakes are obviously very high—10 percent of the world's population lives within 10 metres of present sea level."
[...] "The striking thing about these findings is that we have taken the most conservative estimates possible," said co-author of the paper, Dr Chris Fogwill from UNSW Australia's Climate Change Research Centre. "In all IPCC global warming scenarios, only one (RCP2.6) saw Antarctic ice shelves avoid ongoing collapse. In every other case we saw significant collapse and rising sea levels continue for hundreds to thousands of years. "The results suggest Antarctic ice shelf stability has a tipping point dependent on a critical temperature threshold that can lead to substantial sea level rise even if we reduce emissions after that threshold has been reached." The findings raise an ethical decision for us all, according to Dr Golledge.
So, we have more research detailing the impact of AGW on sea levels. Interestingly, the paper's authors slam the IPCC's estimates of sea level rises due to Antarctic ice sheet melting as too modest.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by CirclesInSand on Monday October 19 2015, @10:31PM
Stop calling this crap research. Computer modelling in any field is not research, it is speculation. And it is worthless speculation. I'm so sick of hearing graduate students and professors who never got off the government paycheck (grants, student loans, etc) pretending that tweaking the parameters of some software written by someone else is comparable to the study and meticulous learning by those who brought the term "PhD" into the English language and made it worth something.
"Computer model" is just a phrase used by college children who don't want to have to defend their claims. Why bother actually having a defensible knowledge of your field, when you can just say "well the computer told me so"?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Covalent on Tuesday October 20 2015, @02:03AM
Yeah wow this is complete garbage.
Computer modeling is not perfect. No one says it is. But computer modeling is incredibly valuable. Hurricane prediction is vastly better, epidemics can be better dealt with, and machines of all kinds are optimized and improved like living things.
Is it possible only 39cm of sea level rise faces us in 2100? Certainly. There are always uncertainties. But more data, improved algorithms, and more powerful computers can and will give us a clearer picture of the future.
Climate change is real. You need only go to Miami and see for yourself if you doubt. That city simply won't be in 85 years. And you don't need a computer to model that...just a ruler.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 2) by fleg on Tuesday October 20 2015, @03:19AM
i read this really great .sig somewhere....
"You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into."
;)
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:07PM
Yeah, let's go back to the 1960s by making medicines by trial and error of random chemicals. You first.
That was a stupid comment. Educate yourself; look up Combinatorial Chemistry, [wikipedia.org] and QSAR [wikipedia.org]. Without computer modelling, many problems that are now routinely solved would be intractable.
If it didn't work, do you think Big Pharma would invest billions in it?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2015, @12:15PM
A computer model is the same thing as a theory. It is just an easier way to see the consequences of some equations. That said, there is zero legitimate reason for this speculative stuff to be in the news. These people are going to end up destroying all public support for science when things work out differently. And there is no history of predictive skill in this area so I have zero confidence they really understand what is going on.