Years Of Living Dangerously

After a long period of development, James Cameron’s terrific and powerful mega-project on climate change, “Years of Living Dangerously”, opens today on Showtime.

The first hour installment of the 9 part series features glimpses of climate change impacts around the planet through the eyes of well known guides.
First episode is free online.

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http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvhCnYvxQQ[/youtube]

Sounds like a great show

The first episode was excellent. This panel discussion is worth a watch as well:


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pgeu15hPcw[/youtube]

as the risk of be lambasted... well, now that i think of it, i get lambasted all the time here for one thing or another...

I have nothing more than a gut feeling that our weather is changing and not so much getting colder or warmer. sure we have natural cycles but the cycles seem to be getting much more extreme.

records are broken all the time but it seems like its the extreme weather events that are getting worse. but if they dont increase in numbers, we write it off as "natural".

Last month, WA broke their all time rain record. this is something that happens 2-4 years or so. we have an all time high or low or dry or something. but the record was broken in spectacular fashion and ya, mudslides took out the north end commuter train so many times it barely ran during the month but that has happened plenty of times before. But we also had an entire neighborhood wash away and this time it took a bunch of people with it. its a tragedy but also a microcosm of what we face today in the arena of environmental change. (cant call it climate change cause people only wanna argue about that)

Just like the neighborhood, we all pretty much knew there was a huge risk to live there. several warnings and studies indicated the land was not stable, but people moved there anyway. building permits continued to be issued, etc. We did it because we felt lucky. we did it because we felt we had time... of course all the time in the world aint gonna do any good if you are doing nothing about fixing the issues.

so this "We got XX years before we have to worry about the sea rising a meter" dont mean squat if we arent doing a thing to fix the issue, right?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg[/youtube]

West Antarctic Glacier Loss Appears Unstoppable

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http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-147" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-148" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


And on a slower time scale, but much more ice:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2226.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Changes in ice discharge from Antarctica constitute the largest uncertainty in future sea-level projections, mainly because of the unknown response of its marine basins1. Most of West Antarctica’s marine ice sheet lies on an inland-sloping bed2 and is thereby prone to a marine ice sheet instability3, 4, 5. A similar topographic configuration is found in large parts of East Antarctica, which holds marine ice equivalent to 19 m of global sea-level rise6, that is, more than five times that of West Antarctica. Within East Antarctica, the Wilkes Basin holds the largest volume of marine ice that is fully connected by subglacial troughs. This ice body was significantly reduced during the Pliocene epoch7. Strong melting underneath adjacent ice shelves with similar bathymetry8 indicates the ice sheet’s sensitivity to climatic perturbations. The stability of the Wilkes marine ice sheet has not been the subject of any comprehensive assessment of future sea level. Using recently improved topographic data6 in combination with ice-dynamic simulations, we show here that the removal of a specific coastal ice volume equivalent to less than 80 mm of global sea-level rise at the margin of the Wilkes Basin destabilizes the regional ice flow and leads to a self-sustained discharge of the entire basin and a global sea-level rise of 3–4 m. Our results are robust with respect to variation in ice parameters, forcing details and model resolution as well as increased surface mass balance, indicating that East Antarctica may become a large contributor to future sea-level rise on timescales beyond a century.

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