Sea level rise quickens more than thought in threat to coasts

Sea level rise in the past two decades has accelerated faster than previously thought in a sign of climate change threatening coasts from Florida to Bangladesh, a study said today.
The report, reassessing records from more than 600 tidal gauges, found that readings from 1901-90 had over-estimated the rise in sea levels. Based on revised figures for those years, the acceleration since then was greater than so far assumed.

The report said the earlier readings were incomplete or skewed by local factors such as subsidence.

The new analysis "suggests that the acceleration in the past two decades is 25 percent higher than previously thought," Carling Hay, a Canadian scientist at Harvard University and lead author of the study in the journal Nature, told Reuters.

The study said sea level rise, caused by factors including a thaw of glaciers, averaged about 1.2 millimetres (0.05 inch) a year from 1901-90 - less than past estimates - and leapt to 3 mm a year in the past two decades, apparently linked to a quickening thaw of ice.

Last year, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated the 1901-90 rate at 1.5 mm a year, meaning less of a leap to the recent rate around 3 mm.

The Harvard-led study said the new findings might affect projections of the future pace of sea level rise, especially those based on historical trends.

John Church, a top IPCC author at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, told Reuters he did not expect any impact on the IPCC's core sea level projections, which are not based on past trends.

IPCC scenarios, which range from a sea level rise of 28 to 98 cms this century, are based on the processes driving sea level change, for instance how ice in Greenland reacts to rising temperatures or the expansion of water as it warms, he said.

Stefan Rahmstorf, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a world expert in past sea levels, said further analysis was needed to pin down 20th century sea level rise.

The new findings confirm that "sea level is rising and ... the rise has accelerated, with the most recent rates being the highest on record," he told Reuters.

Sea level rise is gnawing away at shores from Miami to Shanghai. In cities such as Jakarta, the rise is aggravated by big local subsidence.  [buenosairesherald.com]
14/1/15
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Related:

• Scientists: Rising Sea Levels Threaten NASA Space Centers 

• Scientists Discover World’s Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted

• "Raise your voice, not the sea level," urges UN on World Environment Day

• Ice Loss from Antarctic Glacier Unstoppable

Egypt inks deal with 6 firms to dredge New Suez Canal

Egypt has signed two contracts with a consortium of six international firms for the dredging work of the New Suez Canal alongside the original one, head of the Suez Canal Authority Mohab Memish said on Saturday.

Memish announced the signing at a press conference attended by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab, saying that they refer to the consortium as "the Challenge Coalition" due to the challenging dredging work they have to accomplish under a tight deadline.

"It is a very challenging project if you look at the timeline. We are looking at moving about 180 million cubic meters of soil in a time span of less than nine month operational time and we have one month to bring the equipment here to do that job," Bas van Bemmelen, area director of Dutch Boskalis dredging company, one of the six partners, told Xinhua Saturday.

The project was designed to be finished within three years, but Egyptian newly-elected President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered the New Suez Canal be done in one year sharp and be open for ship navigation in early August 2015.

"It is the hugest dredging work in the world and the new canal will be inaugurated on August 5, 2015," Memish said.

The new 72-km waterway project includes 35 km of dry digging and 37 km of expansion and deepening of the current canal, with a total cost of more than eight billion dollars. The national project also includes the digging of six new tunnels underneath the New Suez Canal that will be constructed simultaneously.

"We have finished 68 million cubic meters of dry digging so far and we will keep our promise to complete such a historical project on time," Memish added, noting that his authority will be in charge of dredging one of the six zones using six dredgers, while the international firms will do the other five using 30 dredgers. "The first batch of dredgers will arrive next week," he said.

Earlier in August, Sisi gave the go-ahead signal for digging the new 72-km canal. The new waterway is expected to help revive Egypt's ailing economy by increasing ship traffic revenues, luring huge foreign investments and creating thousands of job opportunities.
Source:Xinhua - globaltimes.cn
19/10/14
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• Egypt to dig new canal alongside Suez Canal (State TV)

Scientists Discover World’s Oceans Warming Faster Than Predicted

The oceans are warming faster than previously thought, according to a pair of new studies released this weekend and published in the scientific journal Natural Climate Change. This conclusion is largely due to enhanced information gathering in the southern oceans, which was limited in the past. The research teams compared previous ocean warming figures, based on the less complete data, with projections based on information they were able to obtain from more detailed studies. They found that from 1970 through 2004, increases in ocean temperatures exceeded those earlier figures.


“The global ocean stores more than 90 percent of the heat associated with observed greenhouse-gas-attributed global warming,” opens the summary of the study “Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming,” produced by scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology.
They conclude that studies of global ocean warming since 1970 are low. “This underestimation is attributed to poor sampling of the Southern Hemisphere, and limitations of the analysis methods that conservatively estimate temperature changes in data-sparse regions,” they say. “Making adjustments to their model, based on recent access to additional information, they say “yields large increases to current global upper-ocean heat content change estimates, and have important implications for sea level, the planetary energy budget and climate sensitivity assessments.”

The other study, “Deep-ocean contribution to sea level and energy budget not detectable over the past decade,” also by CalTech scientists, attempted to measure the amount of sea level rise attributable to upper ocean vs deep ocean warming and when that warming occurred. Sea level rise occurs as warmer water expands.
“As the dominant reservoir of heat uptake in the climate system, the world’s oceans provide a critical measure of global climate change,” says the study’s summary.

They found that the deep ocean may not have gotten warmer in the last decade, but significant warming has occurred in the upper level of the ocean. They acknowledge “large uncertainty” in their calculations about the deep ocean since they were extrapolated from information based primary on upper ocean measurements.

“It’s likely that due to the poor observational coverage, we just haven’t been able to say definitively what the long-term rate of Southern Hemisphere ocean warming has been,” lead author  of the first study Dr. Paul Durack told the BBC. “It’s a really pressing problem—we’re trying as hard as we can, as scientists, to provide the best information from the limited observations we have.”
Anastasia Pantsios | October 6, 2014 10:10 am
http://ecowatch.com
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Related:

• "One planet, one ocean – together, we must protect them", urges UN on World Oceans Day 

• “GOING GLOBAL” TO SAFEGUARD OUR OCEANS

• El calentamiento amenaza la regulación del clima en el Océano Antártico

• Le refroidissement du Pacifique provoquerait une "pause" du réchauffement climatique

Egypt to dig new canal alongside Suez Canal (State TV)

Egypt announced on Tuesday it will launch a project to dig a new 72-km canal alongside the original Suez Canal, Head of the Suez Canal Authority Mohab Mamish said during the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal Corridor project.

He said the new project aims to create "a new Suez Canal parallel to the current channel," Mohab Mamish told a televised conference attended by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Ismailia province.

The new project will be implemented in one year from now, and is expected to provide more than one million job opportunities, said Mamish.

He also noted that, instead entrusting the project to foreign investment, Egypt intends to allow the country's own companies to build the giant waterway.

Preliminary estimates show that the project is going to cost Egypt a total of 4 billion US dollars. The tunnels, once completed, will reduce passing ships' waiting time from 11 hours to as short as three, and will accordingly increase the number of current containers in the course up to 97 in 2023 from the current 23.

Mamish also said that Cairo has yet to consult any foreign country over the new canal, adding that the armed forces along with the other related departments have managed to clean all land mines in the future construction sites that were planted in the 1973 Egyptian-Israeli war.

Opened in 1869, the current 164 km-long Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt. It connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, with its northern terminus at Port Said and the southern terminus Port Tawfiq at the city of Suez.

•  More than 100,000 Egyptians lost their lives to build the Suez Canal.

Sources: Xinhua - globaltimes.cn
5/8/14
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World Environment Day: Parliament's non-stop fight against climate change

“Raise your voice, not the sea level” is the motto of this year´s World Environment Day, which calls attention to the impact climate change has on small islands. The day is held on 5 June every year to raise awareness and encourage people to act to protect the environment. The European Parliament has been at the forefront of the world´s response to global warming, by adopting legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and by guiding the EU towards a low-carbon economy.

To combat global warming, the EU and the world have been trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the last year alone, the Parliament has among others passed measures to promote energy-saving, rules to reduce CO2 emissions from road transport, mandatory energy labelling for appliances, as well as tougher standards for fluorinated gases in air-conditioning and freezers.


The Parliament has also supported the development of second generation biofuels and approved plans to freeze the auctioning of some CO2 permits from the European Emissions Trading System scheme in order to encourage low-carbon innovation. MEPs have also backed plans for reducing the use of the most common plastic bags by at least 80% by 2019.

Ambitious and binding climate targets

The Parliament has been calling for even more ambitious and binding climate targets for both the EU and the rest of the world. In February, MEPs called for a 40% cut in CO2 emissions from 1990 levels, a 30% target for renewable energy and a 40% target for energy efficiency by 2030. They have also consistently called on the EU to show greater ambition in the talks for the new global climate change treaty that is expected to be adopted by the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015.
[europarl.europa.eu]
5/6/14

"Raise your voice, not the sea level," urges UN on World Environment Day

 UN, 5 June 2014 – Barbados, a small Caribbean island at the cutting edge of the fight against climate change, will be hosting this year's World Environment Day, leading United Nations-wide efforts to draw attention to the plight of the world's small islands potentially in peril of being lost to sea-level rise.

“On World Environment Day, millions of individuals, community groups and businesses from around the world take part in local projects –from clean up campaigns to art exhibits to tree-planting drives,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message for the Day, marked every year on 05 June.

Mr. Ban was referring to activities and events taking place worldwide – ranging from a 45,000-strong clean-up campaign involving UN staff throughout Kosovo and the Baltimore Orioles baseball team raising awareness of the environment in Sarasota, Florida, to a bike ride around the lakeside in Geneva, Switzerland – all aiming to raise awareness of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the convening of a youth conference on “Eco-civilization and Green Development” in Shanghai.

In support of the UN designation of 2014 as the International Year of Small Island Developing States, World Environment Day will focus on those countries in the broader context of climate change as its theme. Many of the events under way will also spotlight the upcoming Third International Conference on the Small Island Developing States , set to be held in Apia, Samoa from 1 to 4 September.

“Small island nations share a common understanding that we need to set our planet on a sustainable path,” said the Secretary-General, explaining that reaching that goal demands the engagement of all sectors of society in all countries.

“This year, I urge everyone to think about the plight of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and to take inspiration from their efforts to address climate change, strengthen resilience and work for a sustainable future,” said the UN chief. “Raise your voice, not the sea level.”

Home to 62.3 million people, these island nations play a crucial role in protecting oceans while contributing little to climate change - emitting less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gases.

But they suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate change owing to their small size, remote locations, and limited economic resilience. Research shows that by 2100, global warming could lead to a sea-level rise of up to 2 meters, making many of these island States, especially in the Pacific region, uninhabitable.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), warned that the very existence of low-lying nations, such as Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands and Tuvalu is threatened by climate change-induced sea level rise.

While climate change adaptation was a top priority for island nations, the lack of financial resources is an obstacle, with, for example, the capital cost of sea-level rise in the Caribbean Community countries alone estimated to reach $187 billion by 2080.

“Investing now to head off such a massive economic impact makes sound business sense,” Steiner said in his message.

UN General Assembly President John Ashe, in his message on the Day, also appealed for a global call to action for people across the world to support SIDS and low-lying coastal States endangered by rising sea levels, and disproportionately impacted by climate change, the loss of biodiversity and forests and overfishing.

“Only by transitioning together to a green economy can we ensure a sustainable prosperous future for all countries threatened by rising sea levels,” Mr. Ashe said.

In her message on the Day, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said that while small islands faced many challenges, they are also leaders under that treaty “both morally and practically” in terms of reminding nations of the risks and collective responsibilities to act while driving ambitious national and international action.

She went on to site a host of SIDS-driven initiatives, from improved adaptation of water resources in the Comoros to wind power projects in Cape Verde, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica and methane capture in Papua New Guinea and Cuba, that have leveraged the UN Clean Development Mechanism to build their own clean energy futures. many of these nations have undertaken National Adaptation Programmes of Action under the Convention.

“Our pathway is clear. Clean energy economies produce profits without pollution, better livelihoods in stable industries, restore health and wider wealth and preserve water and essential resources,” Ms. Said, calling on all raise their voices and their ambition now.

On June 5th, 1972, the General Assembly formed UNEP to, "provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations."

That same day was also designated World Environment Day and has since been celebrated as a worldwide day of environmental awareness.

Over the years it has grown to be a broad, global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated by stakeholders in over 100 countries. It also serves as the 'people's day' for doing something positive for the environment, galvanizing individual actions into a collective power that generates an exponential positive impact on the planet. 
[un.org]
5/6/14

Scientists: Rising Sea Levels Threaten NASA Space Centers

U.S. scientists say global warming is forcing NASA to build seawalls near major flight and research centers along the U.S. coasts.

A report by the Union of Concerned Scientists says rising sea levels are the greatest threat to the historic Kennedy Space Center, along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida. It says other NASA facilities already have faced costly damage from erosion and hurricanes.

NASA says it is essential that launching pads be located near water if a test flight has to be aborted in mid-air or a technical problem forces astronauts to make an emergency return to Earth.

Other key NASA facilities are located along the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific.

The report says rising seas threaten other historic sites, including colonial Boston, Hawaiian state parks, and Liberty Island in New York Harbor. Some reporting by AFP
[voanews.com]
20/5/14

Ice Loss from Antarctic Glacier Unstoppable

A large portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting rapidly, and appears to be in an irreversible state of decline. That assessment, from a new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, finds that there is nothing to stop the glaciers in the area from melting into the sea.

Glaciologist and lead author Eric Rignot told a news conference Monday that the melting will be a major contributor to sea level rises in the decades and centuries to come.


"We and many other colleagues have looked extensively at this part of the world over the last two decades, with satellites, airplanes, ships and ground survey. We have examined enough direct and independent observations of this part of the world to conclude that the retreat of ice in that sector is unstoppable," said Rignot.

The glaciers in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica contain enough ice to raise the global sea level by more than a meter, and are melting faster than most scientists had expected. They already release almost as much ice into the oceans annually as the entire Greenland Ice Sheet.

The report, which appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, concludes: "The fact that the retreat is happening simultaneously over a large sector suggests it was triggered by a common cause, such as an increase in the amount of ocean heat beneath the floating sections of the glaciers. At this point, the end of this sector appears to be inevitable." 

• The researchers say while cutting CO2 emissions could slow the glacier loss, they stress it could not reverse it.

For additional images and video related to this new finding, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/1m6YZSf

For additional information on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its potential contribution to sea level rise, visit: http://go.nasa.gov/1oIfSlO
 [voanews.com]
13/5/14
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Related:

• Climate change threatening New Zealand's glacier tourism industry 

• U.N. panel: Climate change effects 'irreversible'

• Temperatura global de la tierra aumentará cuatro grados para el 2100