Canadian Politics Today

The water rise numbers seem to be the ones most exaggerated - by the media.   Scary studies get reported.  Unscary ones don't.

Where did you get the 180 feet from? I though glaciers melting would add about 10 feet. That is still serious for many heavily populated parts of the world, including in North America.

Also note that floating ice melting will add about 2 inches to sea level. Yes, I know that by weight the same amount of water is displaced, but that doesn't take into account the density of fresh water compared to the salt water it is displacing.

What I haven't seen a good figure on is the effect of rebounding of the Earth surface will play when the glaciers melt. That was a big contributor to sea level rise after the last ice age, so I expect it will play part here as well.

I'm actually a fan of global warming. It's so mild here on the west coast, and by the time the Pacific floods my house I'll be gone up yonder. Sorry about the kids.

Ok, I see that most of the current studies were based on the west antarctic ice sheet which is considered unstable since its base is under water. The east antarctic ice sheet has been considered stable, but yes there are some indications it is losing more to melt than it gains from snow cover now. It is much larger, but I can't find any consistent measures of how much it would contribute to sea level rise. The estimates are anywhere from 16 feet to 60 meters, and there are many in-between.

I suspect the global warming deniers will use the current cold snap in the eastern US as "proof" of their position.

Recent boreal winters have exhibited a large-scale seesaw temperature pattern characterized by an unusually warm Arctic and cold continents. Whether there is any physical link between Arctic variability and Northern Hemisphere (NH) extreme weather is an active area of research. Using a recently developed index of severe winter weather, we show that the occurrence of severe winter weather in the United States is significantly related to anomalies in pan-Arctic geopotential heights and temperatures. As the Arctic transitions from a relatively cold state to a warmer one, the frequency of severe winter weather in mid-latitudes increases through the transition. However, this relationship is strongest in the eastern US and mixed to even opposite along the western US. We also show that during mid-winter to late-winter of recent decades, when the Arctic warming trend is greatest and extends into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, severe winter weather—including both cold spells and heavy snows—became more frequent in the eastern United States.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02992-9