Post on 16-Oct-2020
Being the canary in the coal mine: New Orleans and global warming
Torbjörn E. Törnqvist
Department of Earth and Environmental SciencesTulane University
Torbjörn Törnqvist
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Coastal Louisiana in a World ofGlobal Change
A Very Brief History of the Greenhouse Effect…
Joseph Fourier (1824)
John Tyndall (1859)
Svante Arrhenius (1896)
Last Glacial Maximum~21,000 years ago
Global mean temperature:~4˚C lower
Global mean sea level:~135 m lower
Sea-level history, global average
Ice sheet saddle collapse
Predicted Land ChangeFuture Without Action - Year 50, Low Scenario
2017 Coastal Master Plan
Predicted Land ChangeFuture Without Action - Year 50, High Scenario
2017 Coastal Master Plan
12 ± 8 mm yr-1
~35%
~35%
Some Take-Home Messages…
Anthropogenic climate change is old (19th century) science
Some Take-Home Messages…
Anthropogenic climate change is old (19th century) science
Louisiana represents one of the most vulnerable coastal zones in the world, with a present-day rate of relative sea-level rise of 12 ± 8 mm yr-1
Some Take-Home Messages…
Anthropogenic climate change is old (19th century) science
Louisiana represents one of the most vulnerable coastal zones in the world, with a present-day rate of relative sea-level rise of 12 ± 8 mm yr-1
Ice sheets constitute perhaps the world’s largest threat for the future; even with just over 1 °C of warming tipping points may be unavoidable
Some Take-Home Messages…
Anthropogenic climate change is old (19th century) science
Louisiana represents one of the most vulnerable coastal zones in the world, with a present-day rate of relative sea-level rise of 12 ± 8 mm yr-1
Ice sheets constitute perhaps the world’s largest threat for the future; even with just over 1 °C of warming tipping points may be unavoidable
Mitigation remains critical, but we will be increasingly locked into adaptation
Do you think human activity is asignificant contributing factor in
changing mean global temperatures?
Sea-level history, US Gulf Coast