sea level rise: fraser valley scenarios the following is not for the faint of heart

Sea level rise: Fraser Valley scenarios

The following is not for the faint of heart.


Global warming & sea level rise

Fraser Valley scenarios


A relatively close neighbour

M81 is located at a distance of 12 millionlight-years.


Look closely

What strikes you about this image


Two critical features

Finite• limited size

No emergency exits

• Come what may, we are stuck here


A fine balance


Our Atmosphere

PERMANENT gases in the atmosphere by percent are:– Nitrogen 78.1%– Oxygen 20.9%

(Note that these two permanent gases together comprise 99% of the atmosphere)

Other permanent gases:– Argon 0.9%– Neon 0.002%– Helium 0.0005%– Krypton 0.0001%– Hydrogen 0.00005%

Source: http://www.met.fsu.edu/explores/atmcomp.html


Our Atmosphere

VARIABLE gases in the atmosphere and typical percentage values are:

– Water vapor 0 to 4%– Carbon Dioxide 0.035%– Methane 0.0002%– Ozone 0.000004%

Source: http://www.met.fsu.edu/explores/atmcomp.html


“Climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today”

Sir David King, Britain’s chief science advisor

Source: Science, 2004, quoted in Vanity Fair May 2006


How are we doing?


How are we doing?

““There is real concern that There is real concern that by the end of the next by the end of the next

century, human activities century, human activities will have changed the will have changed the basic conditions that basic conditions that have allowed life to have allowed life to

thrive on earth.”thrive on earth.”

– Understanding Climate Change: A

Beginner's Guide to the UN Framework

Convention

Source: Rick Kool


Global warming The 20 hottest years on record

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists


Glacial Retreat

Glacial Retreat: Thinning of the tongue during the 1990s accelerated and as of 2001 a lake started to form in front of it (right image). The ice became buoyant and rapid break-up of the snout is now underway (Michael Hambrey, www.swisseduc.ch/glaciers/earth_icy_planet/glaciers04-en.html).

Source: Stronger Evidence but New Challenges: Climate Change Science 2001-2005;Will Steffen; Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) from 1998 through mid-2004 and, since then, as IGBP Chief Scientist and as Director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, at the Australian National University.


What do Canadian climate scientists say?

As the climate changes, there will be increasing impacts on Canada’s natural ecosystems and on its socio-economic activities.

Source: An Open Letter to the Prime Minister of Canada on Climate Change ScienceApril 18 2006; Signed by 90 Canadian climate science leaders from the academic, public and private sectors across the country



Some impacts are:

• Inadequate water for Prairie agriculture and hydroelectric utilities due to increased drying of the continental interior and reduced snow pack and shrinking glaciers;




• Threats to the sustainability of Canada’s natural resources due to an inability of our ecosystems to respond rapidly as the climate changes.– Warming allowing the spread of insects through our

forests and prolonged drought making forests more susceptible to fires;

– Warming of ocean and river waters, threatening survival of Pacific salmon, a cold water fish, by forcing it away from its spawning grounds;




• Increasing severity and frequency of some extreme weather events, including floods and droughts, some of which are already exceeding 100-year records and requiring more robust design specifications for infrastructure;

• Thawing of permafrost and associated effects on the human environment (infrastructure, roads, pipelines, buildings), sea ice, northern ecosystems and species, all leading to dramatic changes in the lives of northern people;




• Increased marine traffic through the northern sea routes, increasing the likelihood of environmental impacts and challenges to Canada’s sovereignty claims in the Arctic.

• Some of these projected impacts are already detectable.



Top 20 carbon dioxide emitters1996

CountryTotal

emissionsPer capita emissions

Total emission Growth

(1000 tons of C) (tons/capita) (rank) (in %, 1990-96)

United States 1446777 5.37 -1 -9.9

Peoples Rep. of China 917997 0.76 -18 40

Russia Federation 431090 2.91 -6 -19.2 (since 1992)

Japan 318686 2.54 -9 9.1

India 272212 0.29 -20 47.7

Germany 235050 2.87 -7 -12.2

United Kingdom 152015 2.59 -8 -1.1

Canada 111723 3.76 -4 -0.1

South Korea 111370 2.46 -11 69.2

Italy 110052 1.92 -13 1.1

Ukraine 108431 2.1 -12 -37 (since 1992)

France (incl. Monaco) 98750 1.69 -15 2.4 (since 1992)

Poland 97375 2.52 -10 2.6

Mexico 95007 1.02 -17 18

Australia 83688 4.63 -2 15.3

South Africa 79898 1.88 -14 0.6

Brazil 74610 0.46 -19 34.9

Saudi Arabia 73098 3.88 -3 51.2

Iran 72779 1.04 -16 25.6

North Korea 69412 3.09 -5 4

Source: Union of Concerned Scientists


Canada now

Canada has experienced its warmest winter since modern record-keeping began, with average temperatures 3.9 degrees above normal and all regions of the country basking in abnormal mildness, according to preliminary figures compiled by Environment Canada.

Source: Globe and Mail, Mar. 14, 2006, “Hot Enough For You” by Martin Mittelstaedt


Canada now

The biggest departure from typical winter weather was in the area where Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories converge. Temperatures there were a staggering eight degrees warmer than normal.



Canada now

But other notable warm spots included the entire Prairie region, where temperatures were five to seven degrees above average, and southern British Columbia.



Canada now

"Statistically, this is a one-in-a-100-years kind of event,"

said Bob Whitewood, a climatologist with Environment Canada in Toronto.



A view from the US Dept of Energy

Of particular concern are nonlinear changes in the intensity, frequency, magnitude, or geographic locus of losses.

As a real-world example, according to a letter published in Nature, the European heat wave of 2003 was six standard deviations from the norm. Rising uncertainty will confound pricing and reduce insurability in some cases.

Evan Mills, a staff scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

http://eetd.lbl.gov/EMills/



From an actuarial perspective, abrupt climate change is much more of a

challenge to insurers than a stylized view of gradual and linear changes over long time frames.





Insured losses from weather-related events in 2005 approached $80 billion (4 times those from 9/11), and that excludes a host of small-scale events that don’t appear in the official statistics.





It is important to note that many of the impacts of climate change, especially small-scale or gradual-loss events that have enormous aggregate costs—lightning, permafrost melt, mold, drought, or sea-level rise—are poorly (if at all) incorporated in these models. This creates some worrisome blind spots, which I’m afraid will grow larger under climate change.




A business analysis: Swiss Re


Major Floods



Some thoughts on BC forests

“British Columbia hasn't been this warm in 8,000 years, and

the winters are no longer cold enough to keep the beetles in check.

Global-warming scenarios the International Panel on Climate

Change forecast for 50 years from now are already

unfolding in the province's interior.”

Source: Globe and Mail, April 22, 2006; “We Might Become Extinct” by Terry Glavin


Some thoughts on BC forests

“Now, Dr. Hebda is starting to wonder whether the pine forests will ever grow back.

‘We just don't know,’ he says ‘Lodgepole-pine forests need catastrophic events such as beetle outbreaks and a few decades, even from a beetle outbreak even of this

magnitude.’”



Nothing is "normal" any more.

“But nobody knows whether B.C.'s climate, decades from now, will be able to support pine forests.

Nothing is "normal" any more.”



Nothing is "normal" any more.

Source: Ministry of Forests: Last Modified: 2005 MAY 10.


Will there even be any trees?

Source: Ministry of Forests: Last Modified: 2005 MAY 10.


Will there even be any trees?

“’The question is, will there be forests at all in the southern portion of British Columbia's central interior? Will there even be any trees?’ Dr. Hebda asks. ‘It all depends on how much CO{-2} we push into the atmosphere.’”

“So, when Dr. Hebda looks into the future, he sees a lot of sagebrush, grassland and rangeland where the pine forests are now, at high elevations, and down among the spruce, fir and ponderosa pine.”



Global Warming & Sea level rise

Climate Change: On the EdgeGreenland Ice Cap Breaking Up at Twice the Rate It Was Five

Years Ago

by Jim Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, is President George Bush's top climate modeller.

Published on Friday, February 17, 2006, by the Independent/UK :

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/

http://news.independent.co.uk/


Global warming: Sea level rise

“How far can it go?

The last time the world was three degrees warmer

than today – which is what we expect later this

century – sea levels were 25m higher.

So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon.”

Dr. James Hansen; Published on Friday, February 17, 2006, by the Independent/UK :



Risk is increasing

“ Thus, there is now perceived to be a greater risk that the upper end of the well known IPCC TAR estimate of a 1.4 to 5.8oC temperature rise will be reached or exceeded by 2100.”

IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

TAR: Third Assessment Report



Ecological Footprint: Climate Change

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment


Global Mean Temperature & Risks



Global warming: sea level rise

“None of the current climate and ice models predict this. But I prefer the evidence from the Earth's history and my own eyes.

I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.”





“It's hard to say what the world will be like if this happens.

It would be another planet.”





“How long have we got?”





“We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree.

That will be warmer than it has been for half a million years, and many things could become unstoppable. “





“This new satellite data is a remarkable advance. We are seeing for the first time the detailed behavior of the ice streams that are draining the Greenland ice sheet.”





“They show that Greenland seems to be losing at least 200 cubic kilometers of ice a year.

It is different from even two years ago, when people still said the ice sheet was in balance.”




Melting of Greenland Ice SheetMost extensive in 27 year history of data collection

Figure courtesy of NOAA and CIRES



“Hundreds of cubic kilometers sounds like a lot of ice. But this is just the beginning. Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid.”





“The issue is how close we are getting to that tipping point.

The summer of 2005 broke all records for melting in Greenland. So we may be on the edge.”





“Our understanding of what is going on is very new. Today's forecasts of sea-level rise use climate models of the ice sheets that say they can only disintegrate over a thousand years or more.”





“But we can now see that the models are almost worthless. They treat the ice sheets like a single block of ice that will slowly melt. But what is happening is much more dynamic.”





“Once the ice starts to melt at the surface, it forms lakes that empty down crevasses to the bottom of the ice. You get rivers of water underneath the ice. And the ice slides towards the ocean.”




Global Temperature and Sea Level



“Our NASA scientists have measured this in Greenland. And once these ice streams start moving, their influence stretches right to the interior of the ice sheet. Building an ice sheet takes a long time, because it is limited by snowfall.

But destroying it can be explosively rapid.”




Global warming & sea level riseOthers agree

“But if one is interested in risks and in preparing to meet them, the more interesting question is what the deep historical record can tell us about the circumstances under which climates have changed rapidly in the past and the severity of the consequences.

Considered in that way, accelerated glacial melting and larger changes in sea level (for example) should be looked at as probable events, not as hypothetical possibilities.”

•Source: Editorial, Science, VOL 311 24 MARCH 2006


North America current

Source: http://geongrid.geo.arizona.edu/arcims/website/slr1kmglobal/viewer.htm


North America: 1 metre sea level rise


Africa, Asia, Europe: 1 metre rise


Africa, Asia, Europe: 6 meter rise


Coastal futures : New Orleans & Katrina


Coastal futures

Sea level rise:

Fraser Valley scenarios


Municipal populations 2005

Burnaby 204,324

Coquitlam 121,973

Delta 102,655

Langley 25,718

Langley township 97,125

Maple Ridge 73,280

New Westminster 57,480

Pitt Meadows 16,673

Port Coquitlam 57,563

Port Moody 28,458

Richmond 173,430

Surrey 393,137

Vancouver 583,267

Total 1,935,083Source: BC Stats


The information contained in this package indicates a potential at a broad scale (for discussion purposes only)

Scenario 1: Current SituationScenario 1: Current Situation



Scenario 2: 2.5 meters



Scenario 3: 5.0 meters



Scenario 4: 10 meters



Scenario 5: 25 meters


Summary

Can we still avoid dangerous climate change?


Business as usual: We fly, We kill

Figure 10 Energy use of different forms of transport (41)

Energy consumed (kilojoules per T-Km)

Emissions of carbon dioxide (g/ T-Km)

Emissions of hydro-carbons(g/ T-Km)

Emissions of nitrogen oxides (g/ T-Km

Emissions of carbon monoxide (g/ T-Km)

Rail 677 41 0.06 0.2 0.05

Boat 423 30 0.04 0.4 0.12

Road 2,890 207 0.30 3.6 2.40

Air 15,839 1,206 2.00 5.5 1.40

T-Km = tonne-kilometres of good transported g/ T-Km = grams per tonne-kilometre

Stopping the great food swap; Relocalising Europe’s food supply; Dr Caroline Lucas MEP; 2002


We fly, We kill

“It’s not just that aviation represents the world’s fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions. The burning of aircraft fuel has a “radiative forcing ratio” of around 2.7(11).”

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 28th February 2006


We fly, We kill

“What this means is that the total warming effect of aircraft emissions is 2.7 times as great as the effect of the carbon dioxide alone.

The water vapour they produce forms ice crystals in the upper troposphere (vapour trails and cirrus clouds) which trap the earth’s heat.”



We fly, We kill

“According to calculations by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, if you added the two effects together (it urges some caution as they are not directly comparable), aviation’s emissions alone would exceed the government’s target for the country’s entire output of greenhouse gases in 2050 by around 134%(12).”




“If we follow a business-as usual scenario, we will be creating a hammer hitting the Earth faster and harder than it has ever been hit. Except perhaps when the Earth was hit by the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.”

Source: Dr. James Hansen; Is There Still Time to Avoid Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference’ with Global Climate?; Dec. 2005


Regional Climate Change

“In summary, with regard to regional climate:

as with global climate and sea level, business as-usual scenarios will produce basically another planet.”



Basically another planet

“How else can you describe climate change in which the Arctic becomes an open lake in the summer and fall, and most land areas on Earth experience mean warming this century that is 5-10 times larger than the standard deviation of the past century?”



Miami

Miami:Shows flooding that would occur as the result of projected sea level rise of slightly over 1 1/2 feet (.6 meters) and storm surge from a 100-year storm, which will occur every 10 years by the end of the century.

Source: National Environment Trust


New York City

Animation shows flooding that would occur as the result of the storm surge from a Category II hurricane, combined with a projected sea level rise of 2.2 feet (0.7 meters) anticipated over the coming century. According to the National Hurricane Center, from 1900-1996 the Atlantic coast of the U.S. between Florida and Maine has experienced 78 hurricane strikes of Category II or greater.

Source: National Environment Trust

sea level rise: fraser valley scenarios the following is not for the faint of heart

Documents

climate change science

country slide

sea ice

canadian climate scientists

climate changes

image slide

fine balance slide

rick kool slide