Top U.S. Admiral: Climate Change Biggest Threat
Source: Huffington Post
Despite renewed threats from nuclear North Korea, missile stockpiling in China and a stand off between China and Japan over a small string of islands, the head of the Navy’s Pacific fleet has declared the greatest threat to long-term peace in the region is climate change.
Fallout from the shifting global temperature "is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen ... that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about," Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III told the Boston Globe's Bryan Bender on Friday.
This not from some liberal tree hugger, but from the man who ran the maritime part of NATO’s war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi in 2011 and has since been tasked with responding to the frequent destructive weather events in East Asia and the Pacific Ocean.
"You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level," Locklear said. "Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17."
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/climate-change_n_2855007.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
= new reply since forum marked as read
are typically in denial which is both stupid and diabolical. 
Republican chickenhawks hate our military, and they hate the truth. Ergo, they will now go ballistic, once again, hurling tantrums & hissy panty passers, and paying their drug-addled chickenhawk propaganda pimps like Hannity, O'Reilly, and Limbaugh to pump out a fresh crapload of Republican lies about climate change
They have to deal with reality! 
--imm
Antarctica has two ice sheets (an Ice Sheet is ice grounded on the ground NOT floating atop of water, When a Ice Sheet starts to float on water it is called an "Ice Shelf"
. The larger of the two, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet contains about 70% of the fresh water in the world, it is completely within the Antarctic Circle and grounded ABOVE sea level, in most computer generated predictions it actually EXPANDS and absorbs more water over then next 50 years of so due to Global warming, i.e. Hot Air contains more water then cold air, flows over the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and drops the water on to the Ice Sheet making it thicker.
The problem is the smaller WEST Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). It contains just about 10% of the fresh water in the world, if it collapses it would increase world wide sea levels 15-20 feet. It is grounded BELOW sea level, thus the warming waters of the Southern Ocean affects it directly.
About 120,000 years ago a strange thing occurred, world wide sea levels went up 15-20 feet (we can tell by how tall various coral reefs are and what Coral makes up those reefs) almost over night and then within 100 years world wide sea levels DROPPED 80 feet.
http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html
http://whyfiles.org/shorties/096ice_sheet/
Others have called the West Antarctic Ice Sheet the "Godzilla" of Global Warming, for it could collapse and increase world wide sea levels within weeks (if not days) by simply breaking from its grounding and floating out to sea (Changing from Ice Sheets to Ice Shelves or Ice Bergs). Ice Shelves displace the water, the ice will become when it melts, Ice Sheets contain much more water then that even if they are grounded below Sea Level, thus a huge displacement of water in the sea will occur if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapses all at once (and that not only seems possible, but more and more probable).
Here is a map of World wide Sea Level Rise, it is in meters not feet, but 7 meters is the estimate generally given in Meters, while 15-20 feet is generally given as the English equivalent (Given the error inherit in such estimates the exact number of feet in a meter is minor, three feet to a meter is good enough, we do NOT need to use 3.28084 feet to a meter for an exact number. That 15-20 feet equals 4.572 to 6.096 meters, quickly shows that anything except the number before the decimal point is beyond the error in the actual estimate, thus the error in the estimates exceeds anything after the decimal point).
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/
My point is is the Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet taken that seriously by the Pentagon (and I mean the Colonels and Naval Captains who do the actual work, calculating how the US can respond to various potential problems, they report to people higher up in the command structure as to what is needed to address these potential problems).
Something is up, is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet that unstable? If the Greenland ice Sheet or even the East Antarctic Ice Sheets melts (The Greenland Ice Sheet is Melting, but being grounded above Sea Level is little chance of a rapid collapse) both would melt over a century or longer, more then enough time for the Military NOT to be concerned about it (i.e. leave the Civilian Agencies handle the problems as they gradually come up and assist those agencies as needed, just like after a Hurricane).
I suspect the Pentagon thinks the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be the worse threat to the US in the world. Not only will it make all of the Coral Islands in the Pacific (and the rest of the World) uninhabitable, but it would make most ports and Naval Stations on shore unusable (You can NOT land a plane on a Runway permanently under water). Worse, most US refineries are on the coast and within the area that would be flooded out by a 15-20 foot sea rise, taking most of them out for years (The West Coast Refineries are less of a concern given the rapid rise of the West Coast for the West Coast is where the North American Continental Plate is running atop of the Pacific Plate, leading to a rapid increase in height).
The Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast, unlike the West Coast, are NOT the product of two plates colliding, but two plates separating and forming the Atlantic Ocean. Thus it is a gradual drop in height as you near the ocean (In the Gulf and Atlantic, you do NOT have the places where homes can overlook the ocean from a cliff hanging over the ocean, as you can on the West Coast). Thus to be near the ocean, the refineries have to be close to the ocean, and being close they are within the 15-20 foot rise level.
Southern Florida is worse (The everglades are under sea level at 6 meters, through Miami survives till sea level rises at least 7 meters), Louisiana is almost as bad as Southern Florida. Elsewhere it is NOT as bad, but the problem is what will be under water is where almost all of the Refineries are (and that is also acknowledging most ports can NOT take a 20 foot PERMANENT increase in sea level without major rebuild which may take decades to do).
The port that MAY survive the best looks to be Barton Rouge, for it is far enough up the Mississippi to already be 20 feet above sea level. The other ports in the US do NOT have the Mississippi river to provide water flow so that ocean going vessels can go that far up stream.
Now, if you want to look at a real bad scenario, look at the 60 meter level, the level where not only the West Antarctic Ice Sheets melts, but so does the Greenland and East Antarctic Ice Sheet, Memphis Tennessee can become an ocean port.
While the West Coast is less affected then the East Coast at 15-20 feet rise, but at 60meter, San Diego becomes part of Baja California peninsula, as the Sea of Cortes extends into Death Valley. Fresno can become an ocean port as the San Francisco bay expands into the California Great Valley, flooding out Sacramento. At a 60 meter rise, ships out of Olympia Washington no longer has to go north, they could go directly West to the Ocean
Please note a 60 meter rise is unlikely in the next 100 years, but possible after that time period.
http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/
The real issue is the 15-20 feet rise, that can cause a huge problem, in that people in the Coral Islands will have to be vacated (and so would any Military bases on such islands, such a Diego Garcia), but at a time where access to oil will become extremely tight. That one, two punch can be deadly and what the Pentagon is afraid of.
Here are some links, the first one goes into details on some of the proposals to "help the Climate":
http://www.chooseclimate.org/cleng/cleng.html
http://www-esd.lbl.gov/CLIMATE/OCEAN/fertilization.html
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/life/dustplankton...
http://www.mountwashington.org/transcripts/2004/03/23.p...
http://www.esse.ou.edu/classes/geos5510/lecture_notes/L...
http://www.princeton.edu/~cebic/enzymecycles.html
http://www.princeton.edu/~cebic/chelbindintro.html
