Will sea levels really rise if the glaciers melt?

[trader_4]

Fortunately the sea level only rose 6" in the last 100 years. It's currently rising at twice that rate, but still it's a long way from a few feet.

Yes, I'd like to see that cite too.

[bob haller]

even a small increase in sea level can cause great grief for communities along the ocean. its called storm surge and rising sea levels dont help.

just look at new york and new jersey

[trader_4]

I look at NJ every day. Looking at it right now. Nothing much new here, so far. We had serious hurricanes here in the past. The first half of the last century was a period of increased and more severe hurricanes. Last half,

1960s on, was more subdued, until Sandy. I've been saying for decades that a big one was inevitable. Anyone with a lick of sense knew it. We've had a huge influx of city folks move to the shore here in the last two decades. People who have no concept of a hurricane, how destructive they can be. They want to live on the water, so now they learned. It's hard to tell me that the 6" rise in sea level over the last 100 years was a dominant or significant cause of what happened in NJ/NYC. Then you have headlines like "most destructive hurricane ever. Costliest hurricane ever." You think maybe the fact that there is 10X the housing and commercial development here that there was in 1940 has anything to do with that? Big, destructive storms have happened before. They will happen again.

[gfretwell]

It is not shocking that barrier islands are in danger, they are always in danger. It was only in the last 50 years or so that people started ignoring that fact. That may not have been seen as true up north where hurricanes like Sandy are once in a century events but it was well known down south Beach buildings used to just be shacks that were expected to blow away in a big storm and the whole concept of getting cheap government backed insurance was not even considered.

The fact that some 3d world places are built in dangerous places does not surprise me at all. Sea level rise is far from the most likely danger to most of the people in danger

A lot is made about things the Pentagon "plans" on but they have to have a plan for lots of things, most that are very unlikely to happen. When you listen to the scientists who are not talking about very unlikely circumstances, these sea rise projections ARE out 100 years or more. We have plenty of things to worry about that are on far shorter time scales. A world at war over water shortages is far more likely than a rising ocean washing away coastal New Jersey. In most cases, this is simply because we "made deserts bloom" with massive, ill conceived 20th century water projects and mother nature is striking back. We are seeing a lot of that in Florida too because "draining the swamp" was seen as a great idea.

[gfretwell]

No offense but Sandy wasn't even a hurricane when it hit. It was just a marginal CAT 1 but most reports had it as a tropical storm at landfall. Perhaps the coastal communities will rebuild with a stricter building code in the future and the next one will not be so devastating. Two issues were apparent right away. Buildings were not at the FEMA elevation and there seemed to be no regard for uplift loads. I know when I was building in Maryland, all of the emphasis was on down force. Nothing was ever strapped down to prevent things from going up. They didn't even require nuts on the J bolts set in concrete support structures.

[Adam Kubias]

All partisanship is, by definition, NOT thinking at all.

Left or right, if you are following a dogma, you are not thinking.

This is why Col. Edmond Burke is more intelligent than politicians.

[Been There]

replying to trader_4, Been There wrote: Yea, Trader_4 got it right! Increase in storm destruction caused by coastal development, not weather, no SL rise