Ann Arbor (reported comment) – CNN Y the independent reported this week on a massive ice melt in Greenland, with a loss of the order of 6 billion tons of ice in three days. The meltdown was due to a heat wave at the top of the world, caused by burning coal, gasoline and methane gas and spewing billions of tons of the dangerous heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
These types of events are directly responsible for sea level rise and coastal flooding around the world and in the United States (which has a lot of coastline if you think about it). Often, it is the poorest and most disadvantaged who will suffer most severely from disturbances such as storm surges, coastal erosion, saltwater invasion of lagoons and urban flooding.
A heat wave in Greenland only reaches 60°F (15°C), when most of us would still feel the need for a sweater. But normally, according to a climate and weather site, “In July, average daytime high temperatures are cool, ranging from 6°C (43°F) in KapTobin to 10°C (50°F) in Angmagssalik. Night temperatures generally drop to 2°C (36°F) in Angmagssalik and 0°C (32°F) in KapTobin. It is one of the hottest months of the year.”
So yes, 60F/ 15C is overkill.
I think it was CNN’s René Marsh and Angela Fritz who gave the explanation for how 6 billion tons of ice melted, saying it was enough to put the entire state of West Virginia under a foot of water.
A loss of 6 billion tons of ice is worrying, especially since all of this is cumulative. Eventually, all the ice on the surface will melt if we continue to burn fossil fuels. But we have seen much worse things, say Marsh and Fritz. In 2019, they explain, a hot spring and a summer melted the surface of the ice sheet, sending 532 billion tons of ice into the oceans, permanently raising them more than half an inch (1.5 millimeters).
If all of Greenland’s ice melted, sea levels would rise more than 7.5 meters (24 feet).
We can still stop a doomsday scenario like that, which would wipe out coastal cities around the world, if we stop emitting carbon by 2050. The CO2 in the atmosphere will end up in the oceans. That will acidify them and kill off a lot of marine life, but temperatures would immediately stop rising and gradually return to 19th-century normality.
The average sea level has already risen about 9 inches (24 cm) since 1880, putting coastal regions and cities under pressure. It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a lot. It is magnified if there is a storm surge and makes flooding worse. Also, the oceans are not flat, they are higher in some places than others, and some parts rise faster than others. The ocean in Miami Beach is a full foot higher now than it was even in 1990, and flooding on sunny days without rain is 4 times more frequent than just three decades ago.
car exhaust, h/t Pixabay.
the world economic forum found that urban African-American communities are most at risk from sea level rise, with the risk of flooding in their neighborhoods increasing by 20% by 2050.
Floods currently cost the US $32 billion a year, but that figure is expected to rise substantially if seas rise at a rapid rate.
We’re seeing increasing coastal flood warnings in places like Maine. Sarah Long at WMTW quotes meteorologist Donny Dumont: “It makes sense that we get more warnings just because we’re getting more impacts from coastal flooding. . . Sea level rise does not show a super fast rise, but it is constant. Every year we get a couple of millimeters and you add that up over a decade and you’re just having more coastal flooding than you used to.” Keep in mind that an increase of 10 millimeters per decade is almost half an inch.* But as we saw in Miami Beach, elsewhere the increases are more dramatic.
In Ghana, the Atlantic Ocean has already moved six feet into the interior of the country, threatening to wipe out a whole series of coastal settlements. Coastal erosion is accelerating and the new conditions may interfere with fishing. People’s livelihoods are in danger.
—
* corrected on 07/23/22