Glaciers are mechanically and thermodynamically complicated, their
interior structures are difficult to investigate, and nobody has ever
baked them this suddenly.
Recall that the Larsen B breakup was a complete surprise to glaciologists.
If you've ever built computer models of natural systems and have ever
watched lake ice break up on a warm spring day (I have on both counts)
you would have an inkling how daunting ice models must be, and still
more complex processes are involved at larger scales.
Arguably, (and Oppenheimer does so argue on realclimate) vastly
insufficient resources have been directed toward this problem.
However, it remains possible that we will not have much idea how and
when and how quickly the ice sheets will break up until they do.
Even more daunting is the prospect of a formal risk analysis.
Strict percentage chances as you would like to see require either
ensembles of similar events to draw upon or strong theory. On either
basis, I can tell you the odds of drawing to a flush in poker, but on
neither basis can anyone yet tell you how likely an ice-cap driven sea
level rise of N meters is by year T.
Also, I continue to believe that we don't have sound ways of
evaluating cost of huge events in the rather distant future. So it's a
mess. Still, a qualitative risk analysis is somehow required.
mt
On 6/27/06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> A 10% chance of 7 m sea level rise by 2100 would matter a great deal. A
> 0.00001% chance would matter a great deal less. We'd then be in similar
> probability territory as for a meteorite strike similar to the one that
> got the dinosaurs, and clearly we aren't doing very much about that
> particular danger given its low likelihood.
>
> And a 10% change of 7 m sea level rise by 2020, gosh, you'd start me
> wondering whether we should outlaw cars.
>
> My understanding is that abrupt disintegration is impossible and we
> therefore can't get 7 m by 2020, and 7 m by 2100 would require huge
> amounts of coal to be burnt after 2050 and still be at considerably
> less than 1% likelihood.
>
> Considering the large impact on policy, surely somebody must have
> looked at this question in some detail?
>
>
> >
>
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