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Sea Level Rise Threatens The Statue Of Liberty And Hundreds Of Other Cultural Heritage Sites

Monday, March 10, 2014 11:08
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(Before It's News)

The Sydney Opera House.

The Sydney Opera House.

CREDIT: Shutterstock

Almost 200 cultural heritage sites, including the Statue of Liberty and the Sydney Opera House, could be compromised if global warming reaches 3 degrees above pre-industrial levels, a new report in Environmental Research Letters shows.

The research released Tuesday from Austria and Germany used both sea-level estimates for the next 2000 years and high-resolution topography data to compute which of the more than 700 listed UNESCO World Heritage sites would be affected by sea-level rise at different levels of sustained future warming. The report found that if warming reaches 3 degrees Celsius, sea level would rise six feet in the next 2,000 years, and 170 of those sites would be drowned.

“After 2000 years, the oceans would have reached a new equilibrium state and we can compute the ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica from physical models,” co-author Anders Levermann, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told Red Orbit. “At the same time, we consider 2000 years a short enough time to be of relevance for the cultural heritage we cherish.”

Location of UNESCO cultural world heritage sites affected by sea-level rise. Colours: lowest ΔT at which the site will be impacted by sea-level rise. Open black circles: sites that are impacted already at the present day.

Location of UNESCO cultural world heritage sites affected by sea-level rise. Colours: lowest ΔT at which the site will be impacted by sea-level rise. Open black circles: sites that are impacted already at the present day.

CREDIT: ERL

Some cultural heritage sites will be at risk even if warming is more mild. If global average temperatures rise by 1 degree Celsius in the next two millennia, the report said approximately 40 of the sites would be threatened by the water. If temperatures were worse — if the climate warmed 3 degrees — 20 percent of the cultural sites in places like Naples, Italy and Istanbul, Turkey would be affected.

Temperatures of that level would not only affect the cultural heritage sites. It would also force people from their homes. If the worst-case scenario 5.4 degree average temperature rise were to occur, the report said 30 countries could lose one tenth of their area. More than 600 million people would have to find a new home, the report said.

“Given the millennial scale lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, our results indicate that fundamental decisions with regard to mankind’s cultural heritage are required,” the report read.

On a scenario for high emissions of greenhouse gases, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global temperatures could rise by an additional 2.6 degrees to 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100.

The post Sea Level Rise Threatens The Statue Of Liberty And Hundreds Of Other Cultural Heritage Sites appeared first on ThinkProgress.



Source: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/05/3366651/cultural-sites-threatened/

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  • It’s hard to take Global Warming seriously when you freezing. Science is mostly BS anymore… and I love science. It’s been warped, misused and contaminated…thus, no longer trustworthy.

    For instance, carbon date anything… use mathematics to calculate half lifes to determine what exactly? To carbon date when an object was created? Or carbon date the MATERIAL USED in the object? (STOP… THINK CAREFULLY… OPEN YOUR MIND… USE LOGIC…)

    1. You can only date a “Created/Sculpted/Poured/Built…” object if WITNESSED… and a date is provided. Scientific carbon dating has NOTHING to do with WHEN an object is made. It’s like dating the wood pulp in a newspaper printed yesterday. How old is the newspaper? Technically, it was PRINTED/CREATED 24 hours ago. HOWEVER, the pulp, glues & assorted materials used to make the newspaper are all a DIFFERENT AGE.

    2. So, how old are materials? Since the Laws of Thermodynamics remind us that Matter cannot be created nor destroyed… just changed… TECHNICALLY…ALL MATTER IS THE SAME AGE.

    3. Various dating methods fail because the objects in question were not locked up in lead shielded, temperature controlled lab environments for millenia. Instead, they received a lot of
    “Cross-Contamination” in nature by sitting next to different low, medium or high levels of various radiological materials. Using the newspaper analogy printed 24 hours ago… we take the newspaper, put in a heating unit on low heat for a few hours (not burn it) and dry it out and age it quickly. We’ve contaminated the object now. We remove the printed date and viola! It now looks like a hundred year old news paper… based on observational testing.

    Sadly, science uses various data tools as propaganda to push a viewpoint and SILENCE all who disagree. Science is about TRUTH… not a truth… but THE TRUTH. Propaganda science conditions, influences, corrupts, contaminates and pollutes folks minds to get in line… believe one way only… punishes Free Thinkers… and label crazy or a threat. I get one life to live… and I won’t spend it thinking other people’s thoughts… I WILL THINK MY OWN… and use my head. I will challenge sacred cows of science, religion and culture… until I am satisfied that what I see it the Truth.

    How will I know TRUTH? -That’s easy… TRUTH is what’s left when liars, deceivers, politicians, demons and darkness have exhausted themselves to destroy it… AND FAILED. -Good luck!

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