“Sea levels may rise by 9 inches this century, scientists warn” reads the headline from the UK newspaper The Independent, reporting on a new Science magazine study (subs. req’d). You would probably surmise from this headline that the study predicted sea levels may rise by a mere 9 inches this century. But it didn’t.

The study predicted sea levels may rise by 9 inches the century just from the melting of inland glaciers and ice caps–not from either thermal expansion of the water or from dynamic destruction of either the Greenland or Antarctic ice sheets.

Actually, the story itself gets it mostly right — “This does not include the rise in sea levels caused by the thermal expansion of water, which could potentially double this figure.”

But the headline writer has insured that the vast majority of people who don’t read the story will think sea level rise this century is no big deal.

Interestingly, the authors of this study are quite confident the loss of inland ice will raise sea levels more this century than loss of ice from the great eye sheets — a very many, like Nasa’s James Hansen (who fears 17 feet of sea level rise or more by 2100), do not share.

So why did the recent U.N. report low-ball sea level rise this century?

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Colin Challen, a member of Parliament and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group, has a good editorial in the latest issue of Science (subs. req’d). He makes a key point that is often missed in the debate:

Not only must we reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, we need a timetable that reduces the risk of positive feedbacks and sink failures that could lead to runaway catastrophic climate change.

We are “playing climate change poker,” as Challen says, fighting not just to avoid the consensus prediction for climate change, but the plausible worst-case scenario, which is far worse. That’s why even a 60% cut in emissions by mid-century may not be enough, and many are pushing for an 80% cut.

The entire editorial is reprinted here: Read more

A good online review of my book from Truth & Progress:

Hell and High Water: Global Warming–the Solution and the Politics, Joe Romm. This work might be called the work to read after seeing An Inconvenient Truth. AIT provides the hopeful future, a muted discussion of many of the risks and difficulties facing us/US in turning the tide on Global Warming. Romm hits us in the face, hard, with a terrifying future and doesn’t mince words about the challenges ahead. In many ways, Hell and High Water might be the Global Warming work of most interest to the politically engaged (Democratic and/or Republican). Romm lays a strong case as to how Global Warming could be the death sentence for the Republican Party as reality becomes ever blatantly at odds with Republican Party rhetoric (or, actually, that Republican denial is ever more apparently at odds with facts staring us all in the face). Romm also highlights how, in an ever more difficult world in the years to come, either the United States figures out how to lead in dealing with mitigating/muting Global Warming and its impacts or risks becoming a pariah nation, with dire implications for the Republic and its citizens. Romm has been working literally for decades to try to move the globe toward a more energy efficient, renewable energy path, with experience working with the Rocky Mountain Institute and directing Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy in the Department of Energy during the Clinton Administration. Romm can be found blogging at Climate Progress.

I’m not nonplussed, but I am shocked, shocked at the N. Y. Times report:

The Japanese operator of a nuclear power plant stricken by an earthquake earlier this week said Wednesday that damage was worse than previously reported and that a leak of water was 50 percent more radioactive than initially announced.

For the third time in three days, Tokyo Electric Power apologized for delays and errors in announcing the extent of damage at the plant in this northwestern coastal city, which was struck Monday by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake. The company also said that tremors had tipped over “several hundred” barrels of radioactive waste, not 100 as it reported Tuesday, and that the lids had opened on “a few dozen” of those barrels.

Why is it you never read “Wind Farm Damage Worse Than Reported”? The L. A. Times has more alarming news:

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