Word: rising
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...computer climate model anticipated that increase, which means that all current predictions about how much sea level could rise--the latest U.N. report estimated it at a half-meter (about 1.5 ft.) by the end of the century--are too low and will have to be revised upward. Greenland's ice cap covers more than 650,000 sq. mi. and in places stands nearly 2 miles thick. "If it all melted or otherwise slid into the ocean, sea level would rise by 20 ft. or so," says Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton. Under conventional...
...just the rise in sea level that makes the surprising news out of Greenland so disturbing. That is only one more hint that climate change may hinge on tipping points, where relatively small changes in temperature can suddenly cause disproportionately large effects. In Greenland, it's meltwater greasing the way for massive outflows of ice. In Antarctica, which has one ice sheet the size of Greenland's and another nearly 10 times as large, the same sort of leverage could eventually come into play, with even greater consequences. Yet another tipping point could come as ice sheets shrink...
There's still a lot to cheer about. The Board of Economists' direst predictions last year--that the dollar would tank, long-term interest rates would rise sharply and the housing bubble would pop--didn't come to pass. Indeed, the dollar rose in value, and the yield on 10-year bonds barely budged, despite a series of interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve that were followed at year-end by a rate hike by the European Central Bank. Most significant, there's still no strong evidence of a resurgence of inflation, even though oil prices have more than...
...getting her pension. She's lucky enough to find a new job as a maid at one of the posh new private schools sprouting outside Beijing, but it's not long before Lin discovers she has no real place in this new world. In another story, "Immortality," the rise and fall of a professional Mao impersonator comes to symbolize China's astounding past century, from decaying empire to totalitarian nightmare to capitalist powerhouse. The story, which won the Paris Review's Plimpton Prize for first fiction, is narrated collectively by the citizens of the impersonator's home village...
...sheer number and severity of Africa's ills puts bird flu in perspective. Medical resources in Africa are cruelly finite?death tolls rise and fall according to how well those resources are allocated. Africa has no shortage of candidates to compete for triage: an estimated 6,600 Africans die of AIDS every day, 3,000 die of malaria, 24,000 of hunger and poverty. As long as bird flu primarily remains a threat to birds, it just doesn't compare with these everyday scourges. Even South Africa, the nation best equipped to respond to bird flu, faces...