In yesterday’s Chronicle, there was an interesting piece on how global warming could melt enough of the world’s glaciers to raise ocean (and bay) levels by as much as 20 feet in the next 100 years.

Glaciers and ice sheets on opposite ends of the Earth are melting faster than previously thought and could cause sea levels around the world to rise as much as 13 to 20 feet by the end of the century, scientists are reporting today.

If the researchers’ estimates are correct, a rise in ocean waters projected by the new studies not only would drown many of the low-lying inhabited atolls and islands that are already endangered by rising ocean waters, it also would threaten coastal cities and harbors on every continent.

Scientists have been warning for decades that greenhouse gases from autos and industry are warming the planet and raising the seas, but the studies appearing today in the journal Science are the first to suggest that sea levels could climb as high as 20 feet as a result of global warming.

And in San Francisco, that means that not only is the highly-regarded Marina District below that new ‘shoreline’, but so is most of SOMA, Mission Bay and the Central Waterfront. This image shows how far inland the water could go…

This is obviously one study’s opinion of how bad it could get, but if the first three floors of a new high-rise are at risk of being underwater, you might want to look at floors four and above. Or just find another study that says it won’t be quite so bad…

At the same time, you won’t be able to park your SUV downtown anyhow, so you may as well do your part to save the ozone and sign up for CityCarShare, FlexCar, or ZipCar. In the end though, you might want to consider renting another form of transportation for your new water-front pad…

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.