Word: waterous
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Heat waves, droughts and mass extinctions are all potential threats from climate change. But the scariest risk has always been that of rapid sea-level rise caused by the collapse of the massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. There is enough water locked on Greenland alone to raise global sea levels by 23 ft. (7 m) if it melted, which would swamp coastal cities like London and Shanghai and all but wipe away small island states like the Maldives and Tuvalu. We can likely adapt, expensively, to higher temperatures and changing precipitation patterns, but it's difficult to imagine...
...matter of decades before cities like New York are turned into swampland. Scientists led by Paul Blanchon of the National Autonomous University of Mexico examined sea-level fluctuations during the planet's last inter-ice age warm period, about 121,000 years ago, and found that the water rose as much as 10 ft. (3 m) in a matter of decades thanks to melting ice sheets. That conclusion indicates that, in the current interglacial period, we could well be facing rapidly rising tides by the end of the century if warming continues unchecked...
...coral died when the seas rose too fast for the organisms to adapt; each time the seas stabilized, the corals grew back, but at higher elevations and further inland, a process geologists call backstepping. The result is something like the ascending rings on a bathtub that indicate rising water levels...
...various routes into Harvard—trillions of dollars in family money, the skills of an unsurpassed prodigy, or a willingness to expose oneself the harshest of nature’s elements, peeling the skin off of one’s own palms and repeatedly pushing a plank through water (otherwise known as crew). Most of us, however, choose to work very, very hard. While generally regarded as a positive characteristic, this drive to work also makes us susceptible to tendencies of excess. As a necessary counter to the detrimental effects of an obsessive work ethic, we should welcome...
...rest of the discarded pictures were also of the world's longest-serving monarch, some capturing him in ceremonial regalia, one showing him playing a jazz saxophone. Apirat shook his head as water dripped on the images, which were left behind when the Red Shirts abandoned their post and started the trip back to their homes across the nation. An unspoken question hovered in the air: What were pictures of Thailand's King, beloved by millions, doing forsaken in the middle of what hours before had been a potential battle zone? (See pictures of the week's protests...