[GWSG] President's plans; speedier permafrost melt; differential sea level rise along the Atlantic E coast, N hemisphere

[Tilley, Al]

1.  President Obama took a number of strong positions on climate in his state of the union address.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/13/us-obama-speech-climate-idUSBRE91C09T20130213  There is much to applaud, but it might have been stronger.  I was disappointed to hear him supporting further development of oil and gas.  We should leave all we can in the ground, for we have frittered away our time for an orderly transition.  Here is a transcript of the president’s comments on climate:  http://insideclimatenews.org/breaking-news/20130213/obama-energy-and-climate-state-union-address?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+solveclimate%2Fblog+%28InsideClimate+News%29

2.  As the Arctic permafrost melts, the landscape is disrupted, exposing yet more permafrost to decay and producing more carbon than we had anticipated.  http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112782408/carbon-dioxide-released-by-arctic-permafrost-melt-021213/  The big question is what the new findings do to our schedule for runaway methane emissions.  We should be hearing about that soon.

3.  Sea level rise along the upper US east coast is currently 3-4 times larger than the global average.  Sea level rise in the region is said to be the highest in the world.   http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/06/120625-sea-level-rise-east-coast-us-science-nature-climate-change/

A new study supports the theory that the slowing of the Gulf Stream is behind the greater sea level rise along the US east coast.  http://www.climatecentral.org/news/east-coast-faces-rising-seas-from-slowing-gulf-stream-15587?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climatecentral%2FdjOO+Climate+Central+-+Full+Feed  Another factor is decreased gravitational hold on surrounding waters as Greenland loses mass.  http://www.climatecentral.org/news/the-secret-of-sea-level-rise-it-will-vary-greatly-by-region  Yet another factor may be the coriolis effect on wind and water circulation patterns, along with the alterations in salinity and heat from release of Greenland freshwater melt.  http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14264-greenland-meltwater-will-take-slow-wave-around-globe.html

Detlef Stammer’s 2006 paper (published 2008) set out his slow wave theory, modeling a buildup of water along the northern East Atlantic coast which would last more than 50 years and bring much higher sea levels for that time.  The rise takes time to travel south and diminishes as it goes.  Ten years after melt water is released from Greenland, it reaches the coast of North Florida and the sea rises about 8 times as high as the eventual world average for the release.   http://ecco.mit.edu/pdfs/reports/report_42.pdf  Stammer revisited the topic in a joint 2011 paper. http://www.journalogy.net/Publication/48429667/response-of-a-coupled-ocean-atmosphere-model-to-greenland-ice-melting

Greenland is now losing mass 5 times faster than it was in the early 1990s. http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/29/15518574-antarctica-greenland-ice-definitely-melting-into-sea-and-speeding-up-experts-warn?lite

We have every reason to anticipate that the melt from Greenland will continue to increase, and to expect much higher than average sea level rise effects on the east coast of the US.  Yet no public account of differential sea level rise has been taken in planning efforts in Florida (and perhaps elsewhere along the east coast—I do not know of an instance, and have not seen a realistic set of planning figures from any source).  We have an urgent need for sound regional projections of sea level rise for the Atlantic east coast in the northern hemisphere.
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