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Thursday, May 28, 2015

Will This Float Your Boat - 11

John Englander
Today I offer for your perusal the video below.

It is a presentation given in Florida this year.

"Oceanographer and consultant John Englander is a leading expert on sea level rise and its societal and financial impacts. He assists businesses and communities in understanding the risks as rising seas challenge us to adapt to a changing shoreline. His book, High Tide on Main Street, clearly explains what this coming coastal crisis means to you."

The following index is in minutes:seconds format.

It is my paraphrase of what he said at given points during the video, so as to give you an ideo of the type of information in the video:

00:59 In the last six years I have become a specialist in sea level rise [SLR]
02:30 some of the things you learn [in the video] will be new
02:50 in Florida we tend to think we are ground zero ... but lots of places are vulnerable
03:30 about 90% of people think SLR is because the polar sea ice cap is melting, but that is not the reason
04:00 this is a really scary story ... to let you see the real world ... it is diffcult
04:45 the important issue with polar sea ice melt (excluding Greenland, Antarctica) is albedo
06:00 people poo poo this issue as a "natural thing" because it has happened before but the polar ice cap has been there for 3 million years
07:00 this [SLR] is not a natural event
08:55 think of ... tides ... they come and go ... but SLR only keeps coming ... over a long period of time ... sea levl can't go down for a thousand years
11:25 we don't know "when" SLR will become catastrophic, but we do know that SLR is here and will continue to be here
13:23 our SLR models change ...
14:30 SLR estimations of "how high when" have a consistent trend of significant SLR happening sooner and SLR being higher
16:00 flooding is not the same as SLR
17:15 we can exactly predict tides, but not storms and SLR
18:20 storms do let us see the impact of SLR ... but SLR will not go away like storm flood water will ... SLR flooding stays ...
20:15 tides around the world are flooding areas every 28 days due to SLR, which they did not flood 50 years ago
22:53 any inland cities on tidal rivers, bays, and estuaries will also flood because they are impacted by SLR too
23:40 for example, Sacramento, CA levees are more vulnerable than New Orleans, LA ...
24:55 you can bet on the trend because it is clear where it is going ...
25:40 SLR impacts some areas more than others at the same time for various reasons ...




The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

3 comments:

  1. Just wondered if you've seen this, though it's off-topic currently:

    Scientists identify epigenetic marks on DNA of ancient humans

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150528124515.htm

    Ancient DNA sheds light on how past environments affected ancient populations

    Tom

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  2. Good video.

    He is behind the curve on catastrophic levels ... when that will happen ... but he keeps saying the models are being changed to show it happening sooner and sooner.

    But he is adamant that sea level rise will change civilization for a thousand years.

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