Florida faces rising seas; Gov. Crist's team trying to counter greenhouse gas emissions

Those folks who keep saying the science on global warming and sea level rise isn't settled yet may want to take a look at the latest report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Center, released today. The center is sponsored by 13 federal agencies that include the EPA, NASA and the Department of Energy.

On warming: "U.S. average temperatures increased during the 20th and into the 21st century, and the last decade is the warmest in more than a century."

On sea level rise: "There is strong evidence that global average sea level gradually rose during the 20th century, after a period of little change between A.D. 0 and A.D. 1900, and is currently rising at an increased rate. . . U.S. sea level data from at least as far back as the early 20th century show that along most of the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, sea level has been rising 0.8 to 1.2 inches per decade."

Meanwhile Gov. Charlie Crist's "action team" met in Tallahassee, working toward turning in their report by Oct. 1. So far they have found "a range of potential options for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, including more than 300 total possible state actions."

[Image credit: NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission]

A bit of background on the new Scientific Assessment of Global Change on the United States report: "The report, years overdue under a requirement of law, was produced only in response to an August 2007 federal court order that an assessment be produced by May 31, 2008," the Government Accountability Project says in a news release.

“After seven years of denial, disinformation, cover-up, and delay, in its waning months, the Bush administration is finally beginning to allow the publication of reports that acknowledge this scientific reality," said Rick Piltz, director of the Government Accountability Project’s Climate Science Watch program.

Because of the delays, "the world has lost precious years to Bush administration officials’ spin, which has failed to prepare our country to deal effectively with the problem," Piltz said.

Piltz used to work for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, but quit in 2005. Afterward it was revealed that the 2003 edition of Our Changing Planet, an annual report to Congress which Piltz coordinated and edited, and other reports had been re-edited and censored by a White House official who had previously worked for the American Petroleum Institute.

--Craig Pittman

Comments

[paminator]

The image of Florida that accompanies the news story is a projection assuming a 20 foot rise in sea levels around Florida (probably from AIT). Sea level continues to rise at 1.5 - 2.5 mm per year, the same rate it has risen for the past 150 years. So apparently we are now worrying about Florida coastline changes that look like those shown in the image, when such changes are 3000 years from now?

Ugh.

[Tino]

Yes, and that is in 3000 years assuming a linear growth rate in perpetuity.

If this pattern is cyclical (like all other patterns), then the whole exercise is moot. I'm not walking around with a life preserver on yet.