Friday, September 29, 2006

Going under not a problem

Here is an image of what Australia might look like if the sea levels rose by 100m:


The image is from a series of artistic images created by Professor Stephen Young of Salem State College. It's a scary image, but is mild compared to the one shown in the SMH today.

Personally I find this the worst sort of scare-mongering. I happened to research global warming myself a few years ago, hoping to come up with some sort of sci-fi twist that would make for interesting reading. The bad news was that the most pessimistic predictions show a sea rise of a metre or two within the next century. Part of the problem is the paucity of accurate records, and the other problem is establishing dates for sea levels that have been 130m below current (in the last ice age) to perhaps 200m above present (for most of the 'last 100 million years'). I'm not sure I believe we have an accurate idea of this - but the images Professor Stephen Young is presenting is great propaganda material for global warming enthusiasts.

Fortunately the SMH does end with the good news:
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its last report predicted sea levels would rise by between nine centimetres and 88 centimetres by 2100.”


Huh, so no surfing at Broken Hill for the next century or so then.

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