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De pierievjoed littretjoer heeft een nieuw minimum bereikt:

De Telegraaf kopte op 17 februari:

Stijging zeespiegel bedreigt 180 steden VS
WASHINGTON – Volgens onderzoekers krijgen 180 steden in de Verenigde Staten in 2100 te maken met overstromingen en erosie door een stijgende zeespiegel. Dat meldden ze woensdag in het tijdschrift Climate Change Letters.

Het blijkt gebaseerd op een persbericht van Reuters van 16 februari met een alarmistisch kaartje:

Rising seas threaten 180 U.S. cities by 2100: study
Reuters) – Rising seas spurred by climate change could threaten 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, a new study says, with Miami, New Orleans and Virginia Beach among those most severely affected.

Previous studies have looked at where rising waters might go by the end of this century, assuming various levels of sea level rise, but this latest research focused on municipalities in the contiguous 48 states with population of 50,000 or more.

Cities along the southern Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico will likely be hardest hit if global sea levels rise, as projected, by about 3 feet (1 meter) by 2100, researchers reported in the journal Climate Change Letters.

“Climate Change Letters”
Het tijdschrift Climate Change Letters was mij onbekend, maar wat googelen op de onderzoeker die in het persbericht wordt genoemd, Jeremy Weiss, wijst al snel naar de juiste referentie:

Weiss, J.L., J.T. Overpeck, and B. Strauss. 2011. Implications of Recent Sea Level Rise Science for Low-elevation Areas in Coastal Cities of the Conterminous U.S.A. Climatic Change DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0024-x.

Climatic Change dus , en de oude bekende Overpeck is ook van de partij.

Reuters gaat verder:

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated global average temperature will rise by 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) by 2100. However, Weiss and his colleagues put the warming at more like 8 degrees F (4.4 degrees C).

Tja dan wil de zeespiegel wel een meter stijgen, als je het IPCC te conservatief vindt. Hier is het abstract:

ABSTRACT

Recently published work estimates that global sea level rise (SLR) approaching or exceeding 1 m by 2100 is plausible, thus significantly updating projections by the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Furthermore, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the 21st century will not only influence SLR in the next ~90 years, but will also commit Earth to several meters of additional SLR over subsequent centuries. In this context of worsening prospects for substantial SLR, we apply a new geospatial dataset to calculate low-elevation areas in coastal cities of the conterminous U.S.A. potentially impacted by SLR in this and following centuries. In total, 20 municipalities with populations greater than 300,000 and 160 municipalities with populations between 50,000 and 300,000 have land area with elevations at or below 6 m and connectivity to the sea, as based on the 1 arc-second National Elevation Dataset. On average, approximately 9% of the area in these coastal municipalities lies at or below 1 m. This figure rises to 36% when considering area at or below 6 m. Areal percentages of municipalities with elevations at or below 1-6 m are greater than the national average along the Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts. In contrast to the national and international dimensions of and associated efforts to curb GHG emissions, our comparison of low-elevation areas in coastal cities of the conterminous U.S.A. clearly shows that SLR will potentially have very local, and disproportionate, impacts.

(vette tekst van mij)

Ahaaaa: ZES METER, oh waar hadden we dat getal al eerder gehoord?

Juist: Al Gore.

Weiss heeft dus hetzelfde tekenpakket als Al Gore gebruikt om een oud verhaal te herkauwen, maar met “nieuwe data” Maar ach die shuttle radar data is ook al zes jaar oud, en wordt uitgebreid in wikipedia gebruikt door kaartenmakers.

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