[GWSG] Jax floods; more coming; BP & C budget; Ant. sheets melt; Arc. permafrost melts; aquatic food chains at risk

[Tilley, Al]

1.  Jacksonville, FL, will no longer need to look to S FL for examples of tidally flooded streets.  We are having about seventeen days of flooded streets on this visitation, and can look forward to more water on our streets later in the month.  The story does not mention sea level rise, but does say that we are almost two feet over the mean higher high water mark, the basis for water infrastructure planning.  Part of that two feet probably is from onshore winds (and not offshore, as the story says), but part may be from sea level rise.  The "lunar cycles" are predictable, not capricious like the winds; if the tides they cause were at usual levels for this lunar configuration, the flooding would be a lot more familiar.  (We often get flooded by heavy rains; this flooding is tidal, which has not been usual here.)  If the winds were a principal cause of the flooding, we wouldn't be expecting more streets awash later this month (unless our wind forecasts were a lot better than they are).  We need a better understanding of the current sea level rise rates in our region.  http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-10-08/story/high-water-closing-streets-near-downtown-jacksonville-another-week-wet



2.  When and how vigorously we cut carbon emissions determines whether and when cities will succumb to sea level rise.  Miami and New Orleans are the major US cities already committed no matter what actions we take.  Jacksonville is not yet locked in-but we will lose low-lying areas, even under rigorous emissions cuts.  The article considers larger US coastal cities.  http://www.timesofisrael.com/miami-to-sleep-with-the-fishes-climate-change-study-shows/  The PNAS article "Carbon choices determine US cities committed to futures below sea level" is available online.  http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/07/1511186112.full.pdf



3.  BP has acknowledged that we can never use up our reserves of oil, implying that the price of oil might never rise.  BP is among the corporations which have called for a price on carbon.  http://news.yahoo.com/climate-qualms-mean-oil-never-used-bp-085509885--finance.html



4.  Antarctic sea ice is melting so rapidly that the stability of the sheets covering the entire continent could be destabilized by the end of the century.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/12/antarctic-ice-melting-so-fast-whole-continent-may-be-at-risk-by-2100



5.  The Arctic holds about twice as much carbon locked in permafrost as there is in the atmosphere.  Woods Hole warns that melting now in progress is on track to release significant amounts of warming in a positive feedback, and that we have not sufficiently anticipated this in our projections of warming rates.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/oct/13/methane-release-from-melting-permafrost-could-trigger-dangerous-global-warming



6.  A metastudy in PNAS concludes that we are on the way to a collapse of aquatic food chains unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/13/marine-food-chains-at-risk-of-collapse-extensive-study-of-worlds-oceans-reveals  ?

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