With atmospheric CO2 bouncing along at the 400 ppm milestone, a level not seen in the geologic record for millions of years, a new report from a host of mainly European institutes called the Ice2sea consortium provides a timely additional news peg – a newly refined estimate of the range of likely sea level rise for the rest of the century.
In a welcome development the press has widely varied first-reactions to the news. This is good. To see the press thinking for itself – it does happen often but not as often or as incisively as is should – is better than reading stories all taken slavishly from a limited number of press releases. On the other hand, the disparity in some cases is marked. Perhaps it is that reporters are making too much of a rather narrowly focussed report that extrapolated new, modified global numbers from an analysis of the behavior of glaciers on Greenland and Antarctica as they debouch from their fjords into the sea. It may also be that there is no press release. As noted below in Grist, I could not find one.
Sample Stories:
- Reuters – Alister Doyle: Ice melt, sea level rise, to be less severe than feared: study; Doyle reports that the upper estimate for likely sea level rise is 69 cm, or 27 inches (methinks one should round those figures to the nearest 10, with an "about" in front). Nothing to dismiss as trivial, but short of some predictions of a meter or more by 2100.
- BBC – David Shukman (science editor):Sea levels are rising – but how quickly? ; Well calibrated. SEcond graf: "Confused? If so, you're not alone." His lede nails the two-step nature of the study's conclusions, a mixed message that doesn't easily fit into a short sound bite. As he writes, sea levels appear headed for a slightly higher rise than the middle ground of earlier estimates, so this estimate raises the expected peril. However, it also saws off the truly catastrophic extreme high end of oft-cited figures. So the worst-case scenarios we often read are given scant chance. Message: make a solid plan for bad.
- BBC – Matt McGrath: 'Best estimate' for impact of melting ice on sea level rise ; McGrath also cites the 69 cm figure, but initially says this should be put on top of earlier estimates from such bodies as the IPCC. The text deeper seems to contradict this, putting the 69 cm figure as the total.
- Financial Times – Pilita Clark: Sea levels in Europe could rise up to 1m by 2100, say scientists ;
- Bloomberg: Makiko Kitamura, Alex Morales: Sea Levels May Rise 69 Centimeters Until 2100 on Ice Melt ;
Grist for the Mill: Anybody have it? I have the Ice2Sea website, but don't see the comprehensive report there from which these news stories spring. I do find a press release, but it refers to a study limited to four glaciers in Greenland. Use the suggest a story function to let me know what I missed.
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