The World in 2050_ Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith [153]
255 P. W. Mote et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 86, no. 1 (2005): 39-49.
256 T. P. Barnett et al., “Human-Induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States,” Science 319 (2008): 1080-1083.
257 J. Watts, “China Plans 59 Reservoirs to Collect Meltwater from Its Shrinking Glaciers,” The Guardian, March 2, 2009; “Secretary Salazar, Joined by Gov. Schwarzenegger, to Announce Economic Recovery Investments in Nation’s Water Infrastructure,” U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Press Release, April 14, 2009; “California to Get $260 Million in U.S. Funds for Water,” Reuters, April 15, 2009.
258 Melting glacier ice and the thermal expansion of ocean water as it warms are the two most important contributors to sea-level rise. Thermal expansion of ocean water is a relatively sluggish process that is still responding to warming of past decades and will continue in response to more warming in the pipeline. To date, roughly 80% of the heat from climate warming has been absorbed by oceans. A very recent post-IPCC study estimates that over the period 1900-2008 thermal expansion caused 0.4 ± 0.2 mm/yr of sea-level rise, small glaciers and ice caps 0.96 ± 0.44 mm/yr, the Greenland Ice Sheet 0.3 ± 0.33 mm/ yr, the Antarctic Ice Sheet 0.14 ± 0.26 mm/yr, and terrestrial runoff 0.17 ± 0.1 mm/yr. C. Shum, C. Kuo, “Observation and Geophysical Causes of Present-day Sea Level Rise,” in Climate Change and Food Security in South Asia, ed., R. Lal, M. Sivakumar, S. M. A. Faiz, A. H. M. Mustafizur Rahman, K. R. Islam (Springer Verlaag, Holland: in press). Construction of twentieth-century impoundments may have trapped back ~30 mm sea level equivalent in total, an average of -0.55 mm/yr. B. F. Chao, Y. H. Wu, and Y. S. Li, “Impact of artificial reservoir water impoundment on global sea level,” Science 320 (2008): 212-214. However, the trapping effect of human impoundments has since slowed or even reversed. D. P. Lettenmaier, P. C. D. Milly, “Land Waters and Sea Level,” Nature Geoscience 2 (2009): 452-454, DOI:10.1038/ngeo567.
259 S. Rahmstorf et al., Response to Comments on “A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise,” Science 317, 1866d (2007). (See erratum for updated sea-level rise rates.)
260 M. Heberger, H. Cooley, P. Herrera, P. H. Gleick, E. Moore, “The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast,” Final Paper, California Climate Change Center, CEC-500-2009-024-F (2009), 115 pp., available at http://pacinst.org/reports/sea_level_rise/report.pdf.
261 The 2007 IPCC AR4 “consensus estimate” of 0.18 to 0.6 meters by 2100 may be too low. Other estimates suggest a possible range of 0.8-2.0 meters (W. T. Pfeffer et al., “Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise,” Science 321, no. 5894 2008: 1340-1343) and 0.5-1.4 meters (S. Rahmstorf, “A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise,” Science 315, no. 5810 [2007]: 368-370, DOI:10.1126/science.1135456.)
262 The main reason for this is that hurricanes and typhoons are fueled by sea surface temperatures. The Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates their intensity is “likely” to increase, meaning a >66% statistical probability. IPCC AR4 (2007).
263 Calculated from Table 2 of R. J. Nicholls et al., “Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vulnerability to Climate Extremes: Exposure Estimates,” OECD Environment Working Papers, no. 1 (OECD Publishing, 2008), 62 pp., DOI:10.1787/011766488208. See also J. P. Ericson et al., “Effective Sea-Level Rise and Deltas: Causes of Change and Human Dimension Implications,” Global and Planetary Change 50 (2006): 63-82.
264 Monetary amounts are in international 2001 U.S. dollars using purchasing power parities. Ibid.
265 Short for “Water Global Assessment and Prognosis.” See Center for Environmental Systems Research, http://www.usf.uni-kassel.de/cesr/.
266 The climate-change component of this particular