Lots of two-headed ink: In Copenhagen warnings of global sea level rise. And in California, some details…

Widely separated gushers of news – and press conferences – bring today two angles on the high waters likely to be coming. In Copenhagen at the big Int’l Scientific Congress on Climate Change (mentioned in yesterday’s post on ocean acidification) speakers provided their latest estimates of worldwide sea level rise in this century and beyond. The new numbers take account of recently-measured, rapid changes in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets (The Copenhagen meeting also has reverberated with with multiple, dire warnings about climate warming in general). At the same time, a study commissioned by the state of California disclosed specifics on what a projected rise of about 1.4 meters (nearly five feet) – a bit higher than mean estimates discussed in Copenhagen – will mean to coastal wetlands, low-lying communities, harbors, and essentially to its map.

COPENHAGEN SEA LEVEL STORIES:

• Manila Business Mirror – Imelda V. Abaño : RP in deep danger of sea-level rise, scientists warn ; Smart lede – she says yes you’ve heard this before. But now it has “a more urgent tone..” with one study forecasting a rise of most likely one and perhaps two meters by 2100;
• Economist: A sinking feeling/Sea levels are rising twice as fast as had been thought ; Perhaps drowning in rising water does feel like sinking. The story’s angle is that this meeting sets a tone for the overtly political, big Copenhagen round, later this year, that will sculpt the regulatory frame of the post-Kyoto era.
• Australian – Leigh Dayton: Seas ‘rise faster than forecast’ because of climate change ; Dayton apparently did not attend, but manages to stitch together a pretty good, long-distance account of the basics.
• ClimateWire via New York Times – Jean-Marie Macabrey : Researchers: Sea Levels May Rise Faster Than Expected ; Very concise summary. Also interesting to see that NYTimes did not staff the meeting directly (apparently), but uses up this from a service, ClimateWire, maintained by the people who have long provided the trade newsletters and such of Energy & Environment Daily.
• ABC (Australia) Barbara Miller : Sea levels rising faster than thought;
• Christian Science Monitor – Eoin O’Carroll: Scientists: Sea-level rise worse than thought ;

Grist for the Mill: Univ. Copenhagen/Int’l Scientific Congress on Climate Change Press Release ;

CALIFORNIA SEA LEVEL STORIES: The news is that the Pacific Institute, a long established and well regarded non-profit water and climate analysis agency based in Oakland, released a study done under state contract;

• AP (via Long Beach Telegram) – Samantha Young : Warming linked to flooding at ports ;
• Bloomberg – Alex Morales : California Sea-Level Rise May Threaten $100 Billion of Property ; Neatly throws in some material from Copenhagen for context ;
• Orange County Register – Pat Brennan: Global warming could displace 110,000 on OC coast, report says ; This has one of the better explanations of the report’s provenance. And, no surprise, reader reactions are almost uniformly more or less like this example: “It is a total scam. There is no global warming….” plus jokes about Al Gore.
• San Jose Mercury News – Mike Taugher : San Francisco Bay vulnerable to rising waters;
• AP – Jason Dearen : Report: rising seas could cost CA more than $100B ;
• San Francisco Chronicle – Jane Kay : Ocean expected to rise 5 feet along coastlines  ; like where else would it matter? Heavily illustrated piece with maps showing calculated inundation were it to happen instantaneously.
• Los Angeles Times – Margot Roosevelt : California panel urges ‘immediate action’ to protect against rising sea levels ; She includes an explanation that this is one of several state reports on warming’s peril, all from “dozens of world-class scientists and economists, many from the University of California and state research institutes…” ;

Grist for the Mill:  Pacific Institute Press Release etc ;