2 degrees warmer climate in late Pliocene meant 12-32 meters higher sea levels

That would likely mean that also the official UN climate goal of limiting the average world temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees Celsius – a target linked to 450 ppm CO2 equivalent stabilisation scenarios (practically ambitious, theoretically weak) – will eventually lead to many meters of global sea level rise.

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During MIS11 interglacial sea levels were 6-13 m higher, Nature study shows

If you are interested in sea level rise news, you have a busy week. First we learn from a Nature Climate Change publication that the Greenland ice sheet is already gone. Then earlier today two studies published in Environmental Research Letters conclude that in 40 years time due to the current sea level rise 4 million Americans will be at risk of storm surge floods. And now there is a study that does not look into the future, but into the past.

Interglacial sea level rise Nature
In a complex physical world even sea level rise is not a straightforward phenomenon, a new publication in Nature reminds us. Then again, a lot of water is a lot of water.

In a geological sense we don’t have to go far back in time – we stay within the late Pleistocene.

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The frog that 20 million New Yorkers failed to spot

A team of scientists of Rutgers University, the University of California (LA & Davis) and the University of Alabama has today announced the discovery of a thus far undocumented species of frog.

Although in face of the worldwide amphibian decline such is of course always welcome ecology news, it is hardly a shocker [2009 alone, 133 new frog species discovered]. You were saying Papua New Guinea right? Or the Amazon?

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Photo of the day: this worm is missing link in planetary food chain

Life on Earth consists of many millions of species, divided into ever smaller numbers when you zoom out to Genus, Family, Order, Class, Phylum and Kingdom – of which there are six.

When you divide in Domains, there are just three: Eukaryota, Bacteria and Archaea.

To sort of get an idea where Biology stands: ‘we’ didn’t even know whether the one third of life on this planet had direct interaction with the other two thirds. But there’s been a giant leap for life science – albeit one that crawls and squirms, rather than walk step by step:

Archaea worm missing link Earth's food chain
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Greenland ice sheet is already gone

Greenland ice sheet complete melting

Complete melting of the Greenland ice sheet under climate feedback of declining ice altitude

Heard about Sunday’s big climate news? We are afraid it is actually twice as bad as most media reports suggest:

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Arctic ice has had a good winter

Each year at the end of winter the Arctic sea ice reaches its maximum extent. Although unsurprisingly this ice maximum receives less media attention than the annual sea ice minimum in September, combining the two gives a better representation of the actual melting trend.

If we look at these last two anchor points things aren’t going well at all. March 2011 brought the lowest winter maximum on record and September 2011 probably broke the 2007 summer melting record as well.

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In marine reserves reef sharks do well

reef sharks marine reserves

Two different reef shark species in one shot: a juvenile nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) (left) and Caribbean reef shark (Carcharhinus perezi) near bated camera - used for quantitative assessment. Credit: Institute for Ocean Conservation Science.

After some good news about blue whales perhaps now there is also something hopeful to say about sharks.

That however would still depend on whether we will be able to create and maintain protected areas in tropical reef systems along different continents and island groups.

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