(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . World's top ports unusable by 2050 due to SLR; Antarctic warming twice the rate of climate models [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-10 Global warming is Ocean warming. Climate change has come for Christmas this year as gifts for consumer purchases are being delayed at the Panama Canal due to a long-running drought during what should be one of the wettest nations' rainy seasons. Freshwater drives the locks of the Panama Canal, and the drought slows shipping; however, according to Reuters reporting, the damage has been minimal. But, in an update, the delay for cargo ships is now 21 days. Many countries attempt to diversify and move supply chains back to their countries to avoid disruption. That is smart. Panama is about halfway through its rainy season right now, and one of the wettest countries in the world is having one of its driest seasons on record. At the Panama Canal, where freshwater serves as the lifeblood for its lock-driven operations, the lack of abundant rainfall is leading to lower water levels and putting a squeeze on a critical international shipping artery: Canal authorities have imposed restrictions on vessel weights and daily traffic. As the link notes, rainfall pattern disruption from climate change already affects inland waterways. Sea levels rise from the melting of the great ice walls of Antarctica. Thermal Expansion and Arctic Amplification all threaten the world's coastal cities, particularly the top ports. Reuters' report on the soon-to-be-released Global Maritime Trends 2050 finds that some of the world's top ports will be unusable by 2050. The study looked at over 3,800 ports across the globe; one-third of them "are located in a tropical band vulnerable to the most potent effects of climate change," a Lloyd's Register (LR) spokesperson said." It was the Lloyds Register that looked at future scenarios of sea-level rise. Lloyds and its charitable arm represent the shipping industry. The map below highlights the supply chain sites with the largest temperature and precipitation swings over the period of study. These sites are exposed to the greatest climate variability and fastest rates of climate change in terms of temperatures and precipitation and, therefore, are at high risk of being hit by events such as storms, flooding, heatwaves, droughts, and fires. Our analysis found that 49% of the sites in the United States, China, and Taiwan (in red) experienced an increase in climate variability, with the proportion much higher in China and Taiwan (93%) than in the U.S. (33%). Nearly all the sites in China have experienced an increase in heat waves. This intensification of extreme climate events is consistent with the findings of IPCC reports. IPCC reports are conservative, something to keep in mind. It is sea level rise. That will affect shipping port operations. Shanghai, Houston, and Lazaro Cardenas (in Mexico) are some of the top ports that will be useless no later than mid-century. Only Rotterdam was mentioned as one of several unidentified ports already facing sea-level ramifications. They describe utter disaster will result with as little as fifteen inches of rise. Reuters writes: “Countries will need to invest in increasing the efficiency and resilience of their ports and logistics infrastructure to keep up with growing demand for imports and consumption,” the report said, which was authored by think tank Economist Impact. Ports highly susceptible to rises in sea levels such as Shanghai could establish flood defense systems similar to Holland’s Maeslant Barrier and London’s Thames Barrier, the LR spokesperson said. “This would negate the need to constantly raise existing floodwalls every decade, which is a short-term and costly solution,” the spokesperson added. Shipping accounts for nearly 3 percent of global CO2 emissions. The industry is actively cutting its emissions by reducing its fossil fuel consumption, the LR spokesperson said, adding that it remains fragmented. The article is interesting, but the corporate media should stop pretending we have decades to get things right. We don't. Adapting to the runaway melting of the polar ice caps is not possible. Even Dimming the Sun and other geoengineering ballyhooed tricks for slowing the melting of Antarctica will not work, according to new research. Yale 360 always has compelling stories on the fuckery we find ourselves as climate change bears down on our civilization. Scientists say that such climate-related disruptions are bound to intensify in coming years as the world warms. In addition, ports, rail lines, highways, and other transportation and supply infrastructure will be threatened by increases in sea level of an estimated 2 to 6 feet — and perhaps more — by 2100. Around 90 percent⁠ of the world’s freight moves by ship, and, according to Becker, inundations eventually will threaten most of the world’s 2,738⁠ coastal ports, whose wharves generally lie just a few feet to 15 feet above sea level. But to most port managers, the threat still feels remote. The rate of future sea level rise is so uncertain⁠ and solutions so elusive that only a few⁠ port managers have taken action to counter the threat, and only a fraction have tried to assess it. As the ripple effects of what are likely to be ever-increasing and intensifying climate-related disruptions spread through the global economy, price increases and shortages of all kinds of goods — from agricultural commodities to cutting-edge electronics — are probable consequences, Mims said. The leap in the cost of shipping a container across the Pacific Ocean as a result of the pandemic — from $2,000 to $15,000 or $20,000⁠ — may suggest what’s in store. A 2020 paper⁠ in Maritime Policy and Management even asserted that if current climate science is correct, “global supply chains will be massively disrupted, beyond what can be adapted to while maintaining current systems.” The paper argues that supply chain managers should accept the inevitability of economic upheaval by the end of this century and embrace practices that support rebuilding afterwards. The changes are worse than what we are being told. The corporate media is useless for today's problems. It is a crying shame, but the urgency of the crisis is not the top story anywhere. Some frequently dismiss sea level rise as not the most significant threat that other climate weapons will throw at us. We can permanently relocate our coastal cities, they say, easy peasy. How are we going to do that? People won't even put on masks, let alone uproot their lives and migrate unless forced to by calamity. Besides, where will the hundreds of millions forced to leave due to freshwater destruction by saltwater intrusion go? This all takes planning and unfathomable resources, which will take decades. Again, decades that we don't have. Antarctic melting will not only raise sea levels but will shut down the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which links the Southern Ocean to the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and is a pretty big fucking deal when it comes to our climate and biosphere. There is once again highly distressing news out of Antarctica. Antarctica is likely warming at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world and faster than climate change models are predicting, with potentially far-reaching implications for global sea level rise, according to a scientific study. Scientists analysed 78 Antarctic ice cores to recreate temperatures going back 1,000 years and found the warming across the continent was outside what could be expected from natural swings. In West Antarctica, a region considered particularly vulnerable to warming with an ice sheet that could push up global sea levels by several metres if it collapsed, the study found warming at twice the rate suggested by climate models. Climate scientists have long expected that polar regions would warm faster than the rest of the planet – a phenomenon known as polar amplification – and this has been seen in the Arctic. Dr Mathieu Casado, of the Laboratoire des Science du Climat et de l’Environnement in France and lead author of the study, said they had found “direct evidence” that Antarctica was also now undergoing polar amplification. “It is extremely concerning to see such significant warming in Antarctica, beyond natural variability,” he said. A second Antarctic study has offered some comfort. The ice sheet is not yet destabilized and is in rapid retreat. It is still melting, though, and has been declared at a tipping point as early as 2014, per Eric Rignot (NASA). Climate hucksters on Twitter say that Antarctica temperatures are the coldest ever, lib tards. They are right. Antarctica's bitter cold air temperatures have shattered some records this year. What they don't seem to be able to do is wrap their simple minds around the fact that the melting is all taking place below the surface where warm ocean bottom water is creating Swiss cheeseification in glacial ice and, with help from changing winds preventing the growth of sea ice. "With more and more ice being lost in Antarctica over the last years, concerns have been raised whether a tipping point has already been crossed and an irreversible, long-term collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has already been initiated," explains Ronja Reese from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Northumbria University, Newcastle. "The results of our studies deliver two messages: First, while a number of glaciers in Antarctica are retreating at the moment, we find no indication of irreversible, self-reinforcing retreat yet, which is reassuring. However, our calculations also clearly indicate that an onset of an irreversible retreat of the ice sheet in West Antarctica is possible if the current state of the climate is sustained." The main driver of ice loss in West Antarctica is relatively warm ocean water that amplifies melting underneath the ice shelves, which are the floating extensions of the grounded ice sheet. Melting of these ice shelves can enhance ice loss as it speeds up the grounded sections of the ice sheet. That is why the Antarctic margin with its grounding lines -- the zone where the grounded and the floating ice are connected -- is a key indicator of ice sheet health. An accelerated retreat of the grounding lines could indicate a forthcoming collapse of large marine regions of West Antarctica's ice sheet -- those parts of the ice sheet that are grounded below sea level. There is much we don’t know about the hydrology of Antarctica. We are getting some clues, but that is it. We likely know more about the moon's surface than the ice cap. I think we should expect the unexpected. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/10/2192373/-World-s-top-ports-unusable-by-2050-due-to-SLR-Antarctic-warming-twice-the-rate-of-climate-models Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/