Global Warming/Climate Change: A Canadian Impact Assessment

[dewline]

I spotted a thread on Warren Ellis' Engine forum entitled "New Orleans: Doomed". In the course of the discussion therein to date, a link to a couple of blog postings elsewhere that might be of interest came up. The blog's title is Future Imperative, the author is one Ralph Cerchione, and the series of posts is collective entitled "Where Will You Be When the Floodwaters Rise?"

On the subject of the effects upon Canada.

On the subject of the effects upon the USA.

Regardless of how convinced I am of this scenario being an inevitability, and to what degree - and I count myself as convinced enough to worry - I think I'll be incorporating this into my space opera novel as backstory material.

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Sources of sea level rise are as follows:

Nicking from http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/ (which is
quoting Williams and Hall (1993)):

Location                    Volume       Potential sea-level
                            (km^3)       rise (m)
East Antarctic Ice Sheet   26,039,200    64.80
West Antarctic Ice Sheet    3,262,000     8.06
Antarctic Peninsula           227,100     0.46

Greenland                   2,620,000     6.55

All other ice caps, ice
fields and valley glaciers    180,000     0.45

Total                      32,328,300     80.32 

Is anyone credible suggesting that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet might melt?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In fact, at the moment the EAIS is growing, not shrinking. Between 1992 and 2003, it added 45 billion tonnes.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. That does seem to be slowing things down somewhat from what little I've been reading in the last few minutes. Not stopping the process altogether, though, is it?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

No, but if the EAIS doesn't melt, it limits sea level rise to about 14 or 15 meters.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall seeing something online cobbled together with Google Maps a year or two ago that suggested that 14-15 metres would be vexing enough worldwide. No?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Found it again, via this post: http://dewline.livejournal.com/28506.html

Apparently, James, you pointed it out to me yourself. And the site still works!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Vexing but not equally so. The American Gulf States would be inconvenienced a lot more than, oh, BC and both would get off lightly compared to Bangladesh.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the Bos-NY-Wash Corridor...and I suppose that, too, would be light consequences compared to S-SE Asia nations such as Bangladesh.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I don't think so yet, but I've only done what I consider a cursory Google run thus far, using "East Antarctic Ice Sheet" and limiting the search to web pages created/modified within the last year...and I'm not sure that the time limitation I chose helped me narrow things down in anything resembling a useful fashion.