Jake mentioned the Gulf Stream shutdown theory, but another Really Bad Thing that could happen with a 3 ft ocean rise is the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Estimates of the seven million cubic miles of ice floating off into the ocean are for a 16 to 50 ft rise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Antarctic_Ice_SheetRapley said, "Parts of the Antarctic ice sheet that rest on bedrock below sea level have begun to discharge ice fast enough to make a significant contribution to sea level rise. Understanding the reason for this change is urgent in order to be able to predict how much ice may ultimately be discharged and over what timescale. Current computer models do not include the effect of liquid water on ice sheet sliding and flow, and so provide only conservative estimates of future behaviour." [3]
Jim Hansen, a senior NASA scientist who is a leading climate adviser to the US government, said the results were deeply worrying. “Once a sheet starts to disintegrate, it can reach a tipping point beyond which break-up is explosively rapid,” he said. [4]
Or make this your home page so you can keep a close eye on it.
http://igloo.gsfc.nasa.gov/wais/index.htmlThat's what really bothers me about the cavalier attitude that some people have about what, if any, effect we might or might not be having on global warming. It's not necessarily a linear relationship between global temperature rise and global sea levels. It can reach a point where there is a step function, a tipping point or a complete change of state of the system.
Fortunately, the deck off my bedroom is 26 ft above sea level, so mooring the boat won't be a problem. Trailer parking will be a few miles away, however.
