[GWSG] Corps on C cost; dissolving snails; Arctic methane; slr up 60%; differential slr

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Over 100 corporations, including Shell, Swiss Re, and Unilever, have called for a stable global price on carbon to aid in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/268703-shell-swiss-re-want-unambiguous-price-on-carbon  (To do any good, the price will have to escalate.  That is probably taken as understood.)

2.  Antarctic snail’s shells are dissolving from ocean acidification, threatening the food chain.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20461646  A report confirms that acidification is preventing oysters from forming shells in Puget Sound.  U WA will have a new center for the study of acidification.  http://earthfix.kuow.org/water/article/acid-water-take-toll-on-puget-sound-shellfish/

3.  A report to the UN warns that growing methane from melting permafrost threatens to set up a positive feedback.  http://www.smh.com.au/national/at-the-edge-of-disaster-20121127-2a5xe.html    Lead author Kevin Schaefer of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, CO, estimated in an article published in 2011 that the point at which methane release from melting permafrost becomes self-sustaining will come in 2020-2030 unless we reverse warming by that time.  The new work may shorten that time, though the calculations have not yet been made public.  Unfortunately, the results will come too late to be included in the IPCC 5th AR, due to begin release next fall.   http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMGC42B..01S  The urgency demanded by research on Arctic methane has made it the most significant underreported area of climate study, and I am glad to see the many stories which have followed the report to the UN.  When our situation is more widely known, self-congratulation on minor achievements and ads for natural gas will seem as fatuous to most people as they have to me.  We face a prodigious challenge and have little time to meet it.

4.  Global sea levels are rising 60% faster than the IPCC estimates.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/28/us-coastal-cities-sea-level-rise  The global sea level rise report:  http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044035/article

5.  On differential sea level rise: at some places, such as my home town of Jacksonville, the rate is said in the Guardian article in item 4 to be twice as fast as the global average, but that appears to be based on a misunderstanding.   Last March’s Climate Central report on differential local sea level rise:  http://slr.s3.amazonaws.com/SurgingSeas.pdf  I questioned the Guardian reporter, Suzanne Goldenberg, about the differential sea level rise for Jacksonville and Savannah.  She replied that the information had come from Benjamin Strauss, and suggested that he might have had in mind article he published in Environmental Research Letters last March.  High tides vary by region.  A NOAA study of high tide levels found that the coast from Jacksonville to southern South Carolina has about two feet higher high tides than the average.  The Strauss article: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/1/014033/article  Unless something else turns up, and Goldenberg has promised to pursue the matter, the upshot is that the area from Jacksonville north through the Georgia coast will suffer from an extra two feet of effect from sea level rise, but not from a doubled rate.  I shall pass on whatever else I learn on the issue.  Meanwhile planners should allow for local high tide and not just average high tide when calculating the effects of sea level rise.

Melting ice sheets are indeed estimated to have a differential effect by coastal area.  The extreme position here comes from the slow wave theory of Germany’s Detlef Stammer.  Coriolis force effects and ocean currents will pile up Greenland meltwater on the American East Coast for decades.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14264-greenland-meltwater-will-take-slow-wave-around-globe.html  Stammer’s work is historically based.  http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2006JC004079.shtml  East Coast sea levels are increasing 3-4 times faster than the global average.    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/25/east-coast-sea-level-rise_n_1624134.html  Coastal planners typically use only global averages, and should probably adapt to local conditions, including tidal variations and differential sea level rise from melting ice sheets.
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