Rising Seas

Rising Seas

Past, Present, Future

  • Auteur: Gornitz, Vivien
  • Éditeur: Columbia University Press
  • ISBN: 9780231147385
  • eISBN Pdf: 9780231519205
  • Lieu de publication:  New York , United States
  • Année de publication électronique: 2013
  • Mois : Mars
  • Langue: Anglais
The Earth's climate is already warming due to increased concentrations of human-produced greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the specter of rising sea level is one of global warming's most far-reaching threats. Sea level will keep rising long after greenhouse gas emissions have ceased, because of the delay in penetration of surface warming to the ocean depths and because of the slow dissipation of excess atmospheric carbon dioxide. Adopting a long perspective that interprets sea level changes both underway and expected in the near future, Vivien Gornitz completes a highly relevant and necessary study of an unprecedented age in Earth's history.

Gornitz consults past climate archives to help better anticipate future developments and prepare for them more effectively. She focuses on several understudied historical events, including the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Anomaly, the Messinian salinity crisis, the rapid filling of the Black Sea (which may have inspired the story of Noah's flood), and the Storrega submarine slide, an incident possibly connected to a sea level occurrence roughly 8,000 years old. By examining dramatic variations in past sea level and climate, Gornitz concretizes the potential consequences of rapid, human-induced warming. She builds historical precedent for coastal hazards associated with a higher ocean level, such as increased damage from storm surge flooding, even if storm characteristics remain unchanged. Citing the examples of Rotterdam, London, New York City, and other forward-looking urban centers that are effectively preparing for higher sea level, Gornitz also delineates the difficult economic and political choices of curbing carbon emissions while underscoring, through past geological analysis, the urgent need to do so.
  • Contents
  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • 1. The Ever-Changing Ocean
    • Waterworld
    • Currents and Countercurrents
    • Waves
    • Tides
    • Stormy Seas
    • Quasi-Periodic Climate Varations: ENSO and the NAO
    • The Dynamic Ocean
  • 2. The Causes and Detection of Sea Level Change
    • Defining Mean Sea Level
    • How Sea Level Changes
    • Measuring Sea Level
  • 3. Piercing the Veil of Time: Sea Levels After the Dinosaurs
    • The End of an Era
    • A Slow Descent into the Icehouse World
    • Why the World Cooled
    • Ice Buildup in Antarctica and Falling Sea Level
    • Intensification of the Icehouse World
    • Bucking the Trend: Three Cenozoic Sea Level Aberrations
    • Into the Ice Ages
  • 4. When the Mammoths Roamed: Sea Levels During the Ice Ages
    • A Glimpse of the Ice Age World
    • Reading the Book of Sea Levels Past
    • Astronomical Cycles and the Ice Ages
    • The Last Glacial Cycle
    • A Last Glance Back at the Ice Ages
  • 5. The Great Ice Meltdown and Rising Seas
    • The Twilight of the Ice Age
    • Legends of the Flood
    • Melting Ice and the Marine Inursion
    • Lessons From the Great Meltdown
  • 6. The Modern Speedup of Sea Level Rise
    • Vanishing Glaciers
    • Signs of a Warming Planet
    • The Greenhouse Effect
    • Climate Change - The Last Millennium
    • The Encroaching Seas
    • The Beginnings of the Modern Sea Level Speedup
    • A Look Ahead
  • 7. Sea Level Rise on a Warming Planet
    • A Harbinger of Things to Come?
    • Anticipating the Future
    • Lessons from Past Episodes of Rapid Sea Level Rise
    • Ice Sheets at Risk - Potential Instabilities
    • Ocean Surprises - Sudden Shifts of the Great Converyor Belt
    • A Long-Term "Climate Commitment"
    • The Coming Waterworld?
  • 8. Shorelines at Risk
    • Endangered Coasts
    • The Response of the Coast to a Rising Sea
    • Storms and Other Coastal Hazards
    • Living Dangerously
  • 9. Coping with the Rising Waters
    • What's at Stake - Impacts on Land and People
    • Living with the Sea - Adapting to Higher Water
    • Preparations Begin
    • Reacting to the Rising Waters
    • Looking Ahead: How the Past Informs the Future
  • 10. Charting a Future Course
  • The Past as a Guide to the Future
  • Back to the Pliocene?
  • Sailing Into Uncharted Waters
  • Welcome to the Anthropocene
  • Whither the Rising Seas?
  • Appendix: Geologic Time Scale
  • Notes
  • Glossary
  • Bibliography
  • Index

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