Climate Warming and Sea Level Rise
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Climate warming and sea level rise. Item Type Journal Contribution Authors Yue, Jun; Dong, Yue; Wu, Sangyun; Geng, Xiushan; Zhao, Changrong Citation Marine Science Bulletin, 14 (1), 28-41 Download date 29/09/2021 06:19:22 Item License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/1834/5832 Vol. 14 No. 1 Marine Science Bulletin May 2012 Climate warming and sea level rise YUE Jun1, 2, 3, Dong YUE4, WU Sang-yun5, GENG Xiu-shan5, ZHAO Chang-rong2 1. Tianjin Marine Geology Exploration Center, Tianjin 300170, China; 2. Tianjin Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, CGS, Tianjin 300170, China; 3. Geological Research Institute of North China Geological Exploration Bureau, Tianjin 300170, China; 4. University of Texas at San Antonio (Texas 78249-1644 USA); 5. First Institute of Oceanography, SOA, Qingdao 266061, Shandong Province, China Abstract: Based on a large number of actual data, the author believe that the modern global warming and sea level rise resulted from climate warming after the cold front of the Little Ice Age about 200 years ago and the developmnet of the sea level rise phase. In the past 30 years, the rate of sea level rise was increasing, which is under the background of the average temperature uplift 0.2F°(0.11 °C)every 10 years in succession from the 1980s to the past 10 years this century. On the basis of the absolute and relative sea-level rise rate that was calculated from the tidal data during the same period at home and abroad in the last 30 years, in accordance with the resolutions of the 2010 climate conference in Cancun, at the same time, considering the previous prediction and research, the world’s sea levels and the relative sea level in Tianjin, Shanghai, Dongying, Xiamen, Haikou and other coastal cities that have severe land subsidence in 2050 and 2100 are calculated and evaluated. Keywords: global warming, sea level rise, rate, prediction, evaluation Global warming and sea level rise are the core issues in the current environmental [1-7] change researches . Especially after Non-governmental International Panel of Climate Change (NIPCC) denied the relation among climate warming, sea level rise and the greenhouse effect and ascribed them on the natural climate changes in 2009, these years through analysis on actual observation materials home and abroad, in combination with research outcomes in the fields such as modern climate warming and sea level rise, the author makes following primary analysis. Received on September 15, 2011 Corresponding author: [email protected] No. 1 YUE Jun et al.: Climate warming and sea level rise 29 1 Background of climate Whereas the consistency and corresponding relationship between the climate warming and sea level change, first of all, we should make a brief analysis on the late geological history and climate background of modern sea level rise. 1.1 Climate fluctuation in postglacial period and cold stages The advance and retreat and ebb and flow of glacier in postglacial period clearly reflect the feature of the climate-evolvement in a long period and fluctuation in a short [8] period. The division of 4 neoglaciation in northern hemisphere and the contrast analysis [9] on ancient climate curve changes in China reflect the existence of four cold stages in 8000, 4900, 2400 and 100 years ago (Tab. 1). Tab. 1 Division of cold climate in post-glacial period Drift epoch 4（little Climate period Drift epoch 1 Drift epoch 2 Drift epoch 3 According ice age） Wave time (a.B.p) 8200-7000 5800-4900 3300-2400 500-100 (Yeamum.in each) (1200) (900) (900) (400) Denton (1973) Drift epoch (a.B.p) 7800 (2500) 5300 (2500) 2800 (2550) 250 Yeamum.in each According to Tab. 1, basically, a cold stage lasted for 900 – 1 200 years and the interval of cold stages was 2 500 years. A host of observation materials prove, the temperature of each of the four cold [9] stages dropped obviously . Impacted by the cold Siberian air current, China’s eastern area become one of the coldest areas in equiconditional region in the world in each cold stage. There are a lot of records about warm climate and sea level rise in the warm stages [10] among four cold stages on the brand-new section of the coastal plains , especially in Little Climatic Optimum during 1 000 - 1 200, global temperature was high slightly and the temperature was 0.3 °C higher than that in 1990 in equiconditional region. In Little Ice Age (1520-1920), the temperature dropped by 0.6 °C. The cold peak of Little Ice Age appeared after 250 years and then the climate got warm and present new warm stage was evolved by warm-up stage after cold peak of Little Ice Age. Meanwhile since Little Ice Age, the climate cold/warm fluctuation taking 200 (or 250) year as a period has also been [11] superposed . Fig. 1, 2 and Tab. 5 show, the peak values of the cold phase appeared in 30 Marine Science Bulletin Vol. 14 1450 (1428), 1650 (1628) and 1850 (1845), in this way, the peak value of the next cold stage should appear before or after 2050 (or 2100). In other words, the warm stage [12] developing currently will end in 2050 (or 2100) and then the temperature will drop . Fig. 1 Temperature changes from the Little Ice Age to the present Fig. 2 Comparison between the stages of dry-wet regional differentiation changes and the stages of temperature changes in the studied area during the past 500 years [13] [14] (Wang Shaowu ，1990；Su Guiwu ，1999) 1.2 Modern climate warming and greenhouse effect Besides self evolvement of the climate itself, the influence of greenhouse gas (mainly 2 CO ) also contributed to the climate change since Industrial Revolution. [3,4,8,9] First of all, since Industrial Revolution, the average temperature curve in the world th (Fig. 3) shows that the temperature fluctuation from the late 19 century to 1950s was the same as that before the Industrial Revolution basically, remarkably showing the influence of the factors such as solar radiation and volcano activity. For instance, the temperature rise during 1920-1940 higher than that during 1950-1970 was related to the frequent solar activity; in 1950s, the macula activity was the most frequent, but due to the “black swan No. 1 YUE Jun et al.: Climate warming and sea level rise 31 effect” (the power of a volcano eruption equals to the several times of power of h-bomb explosion) of extensive volcano eruptions in the world during the period, the temperature dropped. According to materials of NASA, in the successive 34 years from 1977 to 2010, the average (surface) temperature of the earth was higher than the average level in the th 20 century and 1998 and the period from 2002 - 2010 were the hottest years. The average (surface) temperatures in the world were basically the same in 2010 and 2005, 1.12°F higher than 14 °C (57°F), the figure in the 20th century, the hottest year in the recorded history. Therefore, the greenhouse effect in late 1970s should be enhanced and the average temperature in 1980s was higher than that in the 1970s; and the average temperature of each year in 1998s was higher than that in 1980s. The temperature in the first 10 years in the 21th century was higher than that in 1990s. In a word, the temperature was rising 0.11 °C (0.2°F) per year in past 30 years, 0.42 °C higher than the figure from Industrial Revolution to 1980, representing a speed raise for over 200%, the continuous appearance of the extreme (hot) climate in the past 30 years was an important sign of continuous influence of greenhouse gas on the climate. The high temperature of the extreme hot year is the only way to give birth to the energy causing drastic melting of glaciers and sea ices (for instance, the glacier in Iceland faded away for 1.6 km in a night in July, 2010) , sea water expansion and sea level rise. Secondly, the extensive application of fossil fuels and the destruction of the forests since Industrial Revolution caused the drastic increase of the density of greenhouse gases 2 2 [15] in the atmosphere such as CO . The density of CO was 260 - 290 ppmv (averagely 280 ppmv) before Industrial Revolution. Influenced by interruptions of human activities, the density of 2 th CO increased to 300 ppmv at the early period of the 20 century and this figure reached 315 ppmv according to the data in 1958 when Hawaii’s Mauna loa observation station was just set up. The figure increased to 339ppmv, 343ppmv and 351ppmv in 1978, 1984 and 1988 respectively. Anyway, in comparison with the date before the acceleration of the 2 world’s average temperature rise in 1980s, the annual growth ratio of the density of CO in 2 the atmosphere lifted to 1.2ppmv since 1978. The continual rise of the density of CO in the 2 atmosphere kept enhancing the proportion of CO remaining in the atmosphere and the heat locked in the clouds and finally caused the rising world’s average temperature in the 2 past 30 years and increase of CO contents for 40% in the atmosphere since Industrial 2 Revolution. CO is a kind of endothermic gas, causing current world’s average temperature rise 0.75 °C than the figure before the Industrial Revolution, of which over 40% appeared in the past 30 years. Therefore, according to temperature fitting, 50% of energies contributing 2 to climate warming come from CO emission, one of three factors of climate warming, exceeding to the sum of the energies from solar radiation and volcano activities.