Even If humans quickly stop polluting the atmosphere, potentially keeping a global temperature rise to well below 2°C (3.8°F) compared with preindustrial times — a major goal of the Paris climate agreement — seas may still rise by an additional 9 inches to 2 feet this century, the study concluded. That would trigger serious flooding in some areas, and worsen it in others.

Under the worst-case scenario investigated, if pollution continues unabated, and if seas respond to ongoing warming by rising at the fastest rates considered likely, sea levels could rise more than 4 feet this century alone, wiping out coastal infrastructure and driving communities inland.

The problem would be made far worse if the Antarctic or Greenland ice sheets collapse — something that’s difficult to forecast.

(commentDJ-both Antarctic and Greenland/Arctic region landice is breaking up. Wind is eroding the ice, blowing it in the ocean, layers in landice (with more salt) are melting moving landice-layers above into the ocean-it is not only melting that makes land-ice become sea-ice. Extreme methane release from the Arctic region is making things much worse.)

We are now entering a period in which atmospheres are more similar to those seen during the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum — the last time CO2 measures exceeded a threshold of roughly 405 parts per million (see here and here).

The Middle Miocene Climate Optimum of 15-17 million years ago was a radically different world. It hosted an atmosphere in which carbon dioxide levels varied wildly from 300 parts per million to 500 parts per million. Temperatures were between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius hotter than the 19th Century. And sea levels were about 120 to 190 feet higher. During this period, the world was still cooling down from the heat of the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. Carbon was being sequestered. And it was the first time the world broke significantly below a 500 part per million CO2 plateau that had been established during the Oligocene 24 to 33 million years ago.

If CO2 levels remain in this range, these are the temperatures, sea levels, and climate conditions we will transition to and ultimately experience. But time, and fossil fuel burning, is not on our side. For under business as usual fossil fuel burning rates of increase, we could hit the Oligocene threshold within as little as 25-30 years. And even if the current rate of increase were maintained, the Oligocene boundary sits about 5 decades away.

Just off the coast of Svalbard the current temperature is 3.7 C (or 39 degrees F). That’s the same reading that Taipei City Taiwan, thousands of miles to the south and sitting in the ridiculously warm Southwest Pacific, saw yesterday. Running along the zero degree Longitude line to 85 North, just a few hundred miles from the North Pole, we find 1 C or 34 F temperatures. Temperatures run near or even above freezing along a vast section of ice-covered waters in the Arctic Ocean above 80 North Latitude and on toward the coast of Siberia. There at 74.5 North and 87.55 East, a freakishly warm northwest wind howling out of the Arctic Ocean is pushing temperatures to -1.4 C (29.5 F and above the point at which salty ocean water freezes). It’s colder now in the hills of North Vietnam at 20.1 North Latitude, 103.9 East Longitude with temperatures there hitting -1.5 C (29.3 F).

This is worth repeating — it’s colder in North Vietnam than it is on the shores of Arctic Siberia. Something, most definitely is not right with the weather.

Reports are beginning to come in of ongoing emergency evacuations of coastal homes flooded by surging waters in this region. Given the 9 foot above normal tides combined with hurricane force wind gusts and 30 foot waves slamming into beaches, sand dunes and sea walls, it’s a situation that is, sadly, likely to worsen as the day progresses.

Many of the Worst Impacts Still to Come

To this point, it’s important to note that, with Jonas still centered off the Delmarva Peninsula, this major tidal flooding that regions are now currently experiencing is just the start. The head of water should continue to build on into late Saturday as it moves up the coastline and into New York City, Long Island, Coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Furthermore, impacts to New Jersey and Delaware should remain dangerous or worsen over the coming hours as winds pile waves and waters on top of already record high tides.

Meanwhile, Jonas will continue to generate heavy snowfall over hundreds of miles on into Saturday evening. The situation, therefore, remains quite dangerous and all residents in the affected areas should keep tuned to local emergency officials for instruction. In other words, this climate change enhanced monster winter storm isn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.

Dr. Joseph Kaplan (chairman of the International Geophysical Year) stated the following in the Popular Science article:

This so-far accidental result (rapid warming of Earth) is already serious, and we must find a means to counteract it. Melting polar ice will make ocean levels rise at least 40 feet, and inundate vast areas in the next 50 or 60 years unless atmospheric temperatures are controlled.

Again, it is important to understand who Kaplan was, the chairman of the “International Geophysical Year”, an exceptionally important event that gathered scientists from around the world to discuss the state of the planet.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-24/unstoppable-california-gas-leak-now-being-called-worst-catastrophe-bp-spill using room under the earth once full of oil for gas-storage is working out wrong.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/tornado-photos-damage-southeast-mississippi-tennessee/54388401 and http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/major-storm-to-hammer-central-us-blizzard-snow-severe-weather-flooding-ice/54352350

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-25/east-coast-celebrates-christmas-warmest-weather-record

It’s the climate equivalent of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: the rupture of a natural gas storage site in California that is spewing vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere and is likely to go unchecked for three months.

The breach of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage site, near Porter Ranch has forced the relocation of hundreds of families, who complained of headaches, nosebleeds and nausea from the rotten-egg smell of the odorant added to the gas to aid in leak detection.

The leak, which was detected on 23 October, now accounts for at least a quarter of California’s emissions of methane – a far more powerful climate-altering gas than carbon dioxide.

Already, the ruptured storage facility has released well over the equivalent of 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide – about the same amount that would be generated by driving 160,000 cars for a year, according to the California Air Resources Board.