One can read all sorts of measurements and estimates being offered up (both bogus and scientific) for how much sea levels will rise in the coming years given various scenarios. In addition, one might read that some lands are rising, making near-term sea level rise moot. Soon, it all becomes quite confusing! The best sources for facts are of course the carefully vetted IPCC reports by scientists across the globe. NASA, NOAA and other such sources are also excellent.
Well….Are worldwide seas really rising, and how fast? Does isotonic rebound after the ice ages make up for the current rise in seas, leaving us virtually in the same place, relatively speaking? What about places where there is land subsidence, rather than rebound? Will those places be swamped faster? And what about the melting of floating ice? When that melts, will it cause seas to rise?
A new report in the science section of WIRED does a good job of explaining all of these variables, saying that “…different stretches of the (US) coasts will see wildly different rates of oceanic creep.” This is all very useful information in an approachable format.
Remember in “A Tree for Antarctica” when Ana is reading to Dal about the Canadian town of Churchill? She reads about ‘isotonic rebound’ under Hudson Bay ‘finally’ having being overcome by the worldwide rise of the seas, causing the bayside town of Churchill to need to move to higher ground. The same thing is mentioned in the novel near Khatanga in Siberia.
But, in South Carolina and other nearby states, where there were no glaciers and hence no rebound and where the Gulf Stream has by the time of the book slowed and piled up off shore, subsidence of the land (sliding under water) is much more of a problem. The phenomenon of subsidence and the melting of Greenland and Antarctic land ice created the scenes in the book.
But, thankfully, this is for now just a novel, although one that tries to be accurate given certain known elements. We all hope we will not get there. We can avoid doing so, because of actions we can take right now! Not merely the average citizen must act, but governmental agencies all over the world must cooperate to keep “A Tree for Antarctica” where it belongs – on bookshelves and in the hands of readers, rather than in the realities of our children’s and their children’s daily lives.
I encourage you to read this fascinating article cited above to learn more detail! And, also please look for my prior blog posts about things one can do – right now – about climate change.