Word: rising
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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That's the kind of pick-your-perspective choice offered by a new paper published in the journal Science about the catastrophic rise in sea levels we could expect if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) continues to melt away as a result of global warming. According to a study by a team of researchers from the U.K. and the Netherlands, the much feared collapse of the WAIS could cause a 9-ft. rise in the planet's seas and oceans, laying waste to coastal lands and immersing some nations entirely. That's a doomsday scenario by most measures - until...
...comparative good news becomes a lot less good if you happen to live on either coast of the U.S. The complicated workings of planetary physics would cause seas to rise unevenly, and the Atlantic and Pacific shorelines of North America would be harder hit by an Antarctic thaw than perhaps any other place in the world...
...high would we 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...
...rise in violence is also a quandary for Iraq's neighbors, which play reluctant host to the refugees. The exact number of refugees is hard to gauge, but the Iraqi government estimates there are 2 million. The majority of them live in Syria and Jordan, which are struggling with weak economies and mounting joblessness among their own populations. Government officials in Damascus and Amman have been counting on the improving security environment in Iraq to persuade many refugees to go home. Aid workers in both countries say many refugees are being pressured to leave. (See pictures of the recent revival...
...cloud of uncertainty looms over the shape of things to come. Experts talk of China's maritime rise in the same continuum as that of the British Royal Navy in the days of Victorian empire, and the U.S. fleet during the Cold War. At present, China's naval capabilities are still that of a regional power - its own state planners aim for the PLA to finally have "risen" only in half a century's time. By then, the world could be very a different place. The Chinese navy could act as a stabilizing force - or a source of conflict that...