Peak Sea Level

"I have you by the lifeblood" - King Oilah Akbar IV

I. One Peak Leads To Another

In the finite world on the finite globe we call Earth, there is a peak of everything that is not part of a repeating Earth cycle  (e.g. The Peak Of Sanity).

We call those everythings commodities.

Oil is the "lifeblood" of our civilization, as well as the "deathblood," thus it is a common oddity as well as a commodity (Petroleum Civilization: The Final Chapter (Confusing Life with Death) - 4).

The peak of finite things is not a controversial subject amongst those who know arithmetic (2-2=0), but to the contrary, when the peak of availability of this or that commodity or common oddity will take place is generally controversial:

"The First Law of 'When': the more critical an issue is to the future of our civilization, the difficulty of determining when that critical issue will take effect tends to increase exponentially.

The Second Law of 'When': the greater the amount of time it takes for that critical issue to play out completely tends to exponentially diminish Civilization's grasp of that critical issue.

The Third Law of 'When': the more destructive the impact which that critical issue would have on civilization tends to exponentially increase the time when that critical event will be understood to have begun to take place."

(Quotes Page). It seems that gravity curves space, and fear bends time, especially the time related to the when of sea level rise (SLR).

II. A Most Controversial Peak

I took note of two papers, one of which came out last week, addressing the controversial issue of the time line of SLR, both past and present.

One was presented by Dr. James Hansen and a lot of co-authors (A Paper From Hansen et al. Is Now Open For Discussion).

The other one was presented by 8 authors from the other side of the Atlantic, and then published in a journal (Nature, "Bipolar Seesaw Control on Last Interglacial Sea Level"; cf. Reporting Climate Science).

The two papers address, among other things, the issue of which ice sheet, Greenland or Antarctica, has and/or will contribute the most to SLR.

The older paper points out that in previous eras when ice sheets grew and expanded, then subsequent warming reversed that expansion causing a contraction of the ice sheets, the sequence of events in that contraction was not always uniform.

That is, the process that brought sea level to its lowest point (maximum ice sheet growth and the subsequent global warming sequence of events leading to ice sheet melt) was not the same sequence in all cases.

Ice sheets in the northern hemisphere would take the lead at times, but at other times the southern hemisphere ice sheets would take the lead.

So, for SLR the bottom line is that it depends on what point on the graph we are in reference to, because one ice sheet will contribute the most in one era, but then the other ice sheet will accelerate to take the lead (The Evolution of Models - 10).

III. We Are Here Now

We know that Greenland is leading at this time (over Antarctica), because both continental ice sheets have been measured by Cryosat-2 and other satellites.

Their data are pointing out the scale and scope of current melt:

Measurements from ESA’s CryoSat mission have been used to map the height of the huge ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica and show how they are changing. New results reveal combined ice volume loss at an unprecedented rate of 500 cubic kilometres a year.
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The resulting maps reveal that Greenland alone is reducing in volume by about 375 cubic kilometres a year.
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The researchers say the ice sheets’ annual contribution to sea-level rise has doubled since 2009. [Table 1 type contribution - i.e. thermal sea level rise (additional) is not included in that doubling]

Glaciologist Angelika Humbert, another of the study’s authors, added, “Since 2009, the volume loss in Greenland has increased by a factor of about two and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet by a factor of three."

(What Do You Mean - World Civilization? - 2). We don't know how long that volume of loss will continue, nor exactly when the larger load will begin to be carried by Antarctica, but the load disparity is currently known:

Currently, the ice melt rate (500 km³) is based on volume of ice melt in Greenland (375 km³) and Antarctica (125 km³) which shows that Greenland is melting much faster."

(Will This Float Your Boat - 6). Greenland is the lead meltwater producer at this time, and will remain so for quite a while it would seem.

The main consideration IMO, is that there is plenty to do to grasp the here and now, because the dangers to us are here and now.

I don't fault the scientists for also considering ancient SLR, but more energy needs to go into developing a public conversation to counter the propaganda of Oil-Qaeda (The Private Empire's Social Media Hit Squads).

They have spread the falsehood that global warming is a hoax, when it fact it is a great danger.

IV. Conclusion

Let's keep our eyes and ears open, because Peak Sea Level is headed our way, and it will not be a pretty sight, all things considered (New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage - 13).

The next post in this series is here.

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The 1% are psychopaths ...

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