New report on the state of the world's oceans just out - see this link for the summary.

http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/1806_IPSOshort.pdf

News is NOT good...

and why are we not surprised? it's the acceleration that's most depressing.

I'm not at all surprised. I just wonder, though, what it's gonna take to move the issue out of the realms of talk into action...

Diana

Sea Levels Rising At Fastest Rate In 2,100 Years: Study ...Head for the Hills!

www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/22/sea-levels-rising-at-fast_n_882654.html

Our Neighbour's (CUBA) Scientists Taking Climate Change & Resulting Sea Level Rise...Seriously

Cuba: Sea Levels To Rise More Than 30 Inches By 2100

HAVANA -- Cuban scientists calculate that median sea levels around the Caribbean nation will rise more than 30 inches by the end of the century due to global climate change, official media said Friday.

Models predict the sea will rise 10.6 inches (27 centimeters) by 2050, and 33.5 inches (85 centimeters) by 2100, Abel Centella, scientific director of the country's Meteorological Institute, was quoted by Communist Party daily Granma as saying.

There were no details of what preparations the island is undertaking, but Granma said scientists are closely monitoring sea levels.

Government scientist Marcelino Hernandez warned of the need to protect environments that can mitigate the effects of sea encroachment.

"Right now it is urgent to preserve mangroves, coral reefs, sea grass and sand beaches," Hernandez was quoted as saying. "Each of these ecosystems is a natural barrier to defend the coasts from the impact of climate change. If they deteriorate, the consequences will be worse."

International scientific studies have projected sea levels will rise between 30 and 75 inches (190 centimeters) by the end of the century, fed by melting glaciers and ice caps.

The rises will not be uniform worldwide due to currents, wind and other factors.
(from HuffPost Green-June 17, 2011)

SPOOKY prospects, nuh?

A Central Website, Skeptical Science, touts itself as: Getting skeptical about global warming skepticism.
In an exhaustive "Everything you were curious to ask about Skeptic Arguments about the Environment & What Science Says" are layed out for even MORE discussion.

Perhaps, its blackboard of curiosities portends less spooky intellectual knots, as the serious researchers take us deeper & deeper into scientific data & modeling.

Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics & What the Science Really Says:
www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

Rogues or Respectable? How Climate Change Skeptics Spread Doubt & Denial:
www.skepticalscience.com/rogues-or-respectable-how-climate-change-sceptics-sprea d-doubt-and-denial.html

The Gleaner: Don't Joke With Climate Change
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20110629/health/health1.html

Since matter cannot be created or destroyed,where did the CO2 which was locked up in the fossil fuels come from? Is there any measurable increase in the CO2 component of the air we breathe? Usually .o3%. Could someone answer these questions?
Looks like we are having an information overload along with the carbon dioxide. Do you think man may be creating his own hell? Trying to preempt God perhaps?

Matter can't be created or destroyed, but it can be converted.

When things die, they decompose and the atoms which made up their arms, legs, etc. are recombined into other solids, gases, and liquids.

Oh shoot. I think I just fell for of what seem like questions this person asks just to be argumentative.

Does all this scientific data...in SD's plea for cessation, termed information overload...causing someone's head to hurt?
Perhaps, it is information under-load and dismissal of the rigorous work of data collection that might keep someone blissfully in a divine BELIEF system that man-made stresses on the planet will miraculously heal themselves down the time-line of our clever inheritors

If someone wants to advance in the climate sciences, at least spend a little academic/field study on the leading treatises from the most esteemed in the field.

For the lazier, who get their science primers from Public Broadcasting Stations, a look at EARTH: The Operators' Manual might start the pulling-together of critical inter-related Issues of the Moment:

www.pbs.org/programs/earth-the-operators-manual/

Note that many years ago when the US Air Force Research Lab was calculating the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere affecting missile launches & true trajectories, they had to factor in the the effects of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. As the documentary sums up, the Air Force did't have a political/religious axe to grind: Physics is physics....adding CO2 raises the planet's thermostat.

For the gaseous skeptologists, fascinated with CO2 and its interactions with this terrestrial greenhouse, going back to the LINK:
www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
and clicking on to the What Science Says reference treatises to CO2: (29;33;42;46;47;49;51;60;62;68;71;74;80;83;85;95;98;129;131;134;137;145;149;156;1 60;165) could keep us all bogged down in Graduate Forum!