No More New York, D.C., or San Francisco

Based On: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514153032.htm

Summary:
Scientist predict that a total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, as a result of the effect of global warming, would not raise global sea levels as high as anticipated. Although, sea levels on both sides of North America could raise as high as an amazing 25 percent more than the global sea level average, threatening areas around major cities such as New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. Just to put the size of Antarctica into perspective, it is about nine time the volume of ice of Greenland. Scientist have become very interested in the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, also known as WAIS, because of its instability. As new studies continue on WAIS, scientist have started to realize that they greatly overestimated the potential for a rise in sea level. Jonathan Bamber, the lead author of the study published in Science May 15, said, "There's a vast body of research that's looked at the likelihood of a WAIS collapse and what implications such a catastrophic event would have for the globe, but all of these studies have assumed a 5-meter to 6-meter contribution to sea level rise. Our calculations show those estimates are much too large, even on a thousand-year timescale." Bamber and his colleagues found that if there was a collapse, that sea levels would raise by about half of what has been predicted, so about 3.3 meters.


Impact:
This could impact the surrounding world and me in multiple ways, such as tourism and life forms that live under water. This could cause sea levels rise high enough in the Pacific and Atlantic that coral reefs would be killed off. Coral reefs breed and spread at a certain depth from the service. Since coral reefs are stationary animals, they would not be able to move closer to the surface as it rises with the collapsing of WAIS. Also the sea layer at which the coral resides in could change, as the thermocline and surface layer would primarily be affected. This would result in a die-off of coral reefs and other fish that need the coral as homes and food to survive. With the coral dying off, it would also result in a lessening in tourism, as there would be less scuba diving, tour charters and snorkeling around these areas. If WAIS collapses, huge cities would be wiped out since the sea level would rise 25 percent more than of which the global sea level would be. If you have a major city, for instance New York, which has a population of somewhere near 19.5 million people, where would those people go if they were unable to live in New York. This could lead to overcrowding in the United States. Also mainly, the United States' major cities are huge tourism areas which would make America's revenue lower substantuly. Either way the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet would not be beneficial to the United States and even the rest of the World.