Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Wiped off the Earth

In 1989 a newspaper report said 'Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not stopped by they year 2000'.

This 30+ year old story regularly does the rounds by people who deny human caused climate change.

I am not sure this one story is even wrong though. It is not saying the nations will be wiped out by 2000. Just that increased warming of the seas will cause the water to expand and at some point in the future that expansion will be enough to put some low lying pacific nations underwater. The article itself talks about the changes taking place over long time periods 'We say that within the next 10 years, given the present loads that the atmosphere has to bear, we have an opportunity to start the stabilizing process.’'' 




'the ocean rose more than twice as fast (4.62mm a year) in the most recent decade (2013-22) than it did in 1993-2002, the first decade of satellite measurements, when the rate was 2.77mm a year. Last year was a new high, according to the World Meteorological Organization' ...'Not only is dangerous sea level rise “absolutely guaranteed”, but it will keep rising for centuries or millennia even if the world stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, experts say.'

This one gotcha article goes around regularly in spite of not being wrong.


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