Word: levelling
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...most dangerous part of the Antarctic ice cap is in the west, where much of the continent lies slightly below sea level. Ice shelves that fringe the land keep the seawater out, but if those should melt, the water would rush in and destabilize the larger sheet, leading to slipping, more melting and the possibility of a catastrophic collapse. Picture New Orleans when the levees overtopped; now picture the flooding going global...
...little alarmist. For one thing, in previous studies, climatologists had defined the area that would be most susceptible to a collapse too widely, including, for example, the Antarctic Peninsula, which the paper calls "both topographically and glaciologically distinct from the WAIS," mostly because it lies largely above sea level. Its higher elevation would put it out of reach of coastal meltwater, keeping its ice cover primarily intact. What's more, even within the areas of the WAIS that lie below sea level, there are localized spots that poke above it, and these too would be relatively safe. Factoring in these...
...have to pile the sandbags? It depends where you live, since the ocean would rise higher at some points around the Earth than others. Why? Because adding water to the oceans is not like adding it to a lake or a pond or even a bathtub, where the level rises everywhere uniformly. A lake or a pond or a bathtub is not a 6.6 sextillion-ton sphere of rock and dirt spinning through space. The Earth is, and that makes all the difference...
...makes the need for a deal at the multinational climate summit set to convene in Copenhagen this December all the more pressing. And if you need one more reason to hope we at last get warming under control, consider this: The new study did not even consider the sea-level impact of Greenland, glaciers and other ice-capped lands melting. Add that water to the bucket, and you ought to get things sloshing but good...
...some options may soon disappear. The UNHCR this week announced that since the overall level of violence in Iraq had waned, it is no longer recommending that most Iraqis get automatic refugee status abroad. Instead, they should be individually interviewed to determine their status, the Geneva-based agency said...