How do the Maldives sink? Global Warming?

The Maldives do not have high elevation so are obviously somewhat susceptible to rising seas. The corals around the Maldives have been rising as the oceans rise. I don't think the recent rise is any more noticeable than before unless you are looking for it.

Plates are not as static as some seem to think. If you go to the Mississippi Delta, you will find that as sediment accumulates, it sinks. Newport Beach near to where I live is rising due to tectonic forces. Maldives is probably not affected by this and is simply a coral atol and thus always just above (or just below) sea level.

It would seem, to me at least, that a sand bar is a pretty poor place to inhabit to begin with. The highest point of the island, is not even 8' feet. So at a sea level rise of 8" per 100 years, they might be in trouble in another century or two... But again, I would say they should start emigrating away from their little sand bar, no matter what. Living there makes as much sense as living in New Orleans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives

But no, the seas are rising, and have been for the past eighteen thousand years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea... Nothing remarkable for the last eight thousand years though.

It's just standard issue propaganda. Take a half truth, and try to make more of it than it is, as the whole truth...

Baccheus does not know anything about science never mind climate science so I wouldn't spend much time trying to be logical there. You are correct that sea level rise is very small as according to The Royal Society sea level rise is 20cm/century due to thermal expansion. The Maldives are mostly large sandbanks on corals and suffer from severe erosion like many beaches around the world, it is mostly this erosion that is washing them away however the Maldives have been naturally washing away for centuries as they are on the edge of the biosphere.

In 1988 Hansen did an interview with Rob Reiss. Hansen was asked (as they looked out a NY city window) “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?”

The answer was “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water."

Well it's 22+ years later and the last time I looked the West Side Highway is not under water or anywhere close.

Don't worry about the Maldives or anyplace else. So far the AGW predictions have been 100% wrong.

As far as I’m aware the Maldives are not known to be sinking or rising through any tectonic movement.

Sea levels in the Maldives have been studied in detail by Axel Morner and his reconstruction of sea levels for the last 5000 years is found here:

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/...

Axel Morner wrote a précis of his findings in an open letter to the President of the Maldives. There is a copy re-printed here (my apologies for not finding the original).

http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/5595813/why...

For recent sea level rise the most widely accepted data source is the University of Colorado.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ the data is here: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_glob...

Sea levels are currently rising at about 3.1 mm per year, which is about 12 inches per hundred years. However the rate of sea level change varies significantly over time, so simple linear extrapolations like this are unsound. This study of sea level over the last 300 years examines change in the rate of sea level rise/fall.

http://www.psmsl.org/products/reconstructions/2008...

There are a couple of things that bother me about stories of island inundation due to rising sea levels:

We are constantly told by the media that WE are responsible for the sea level rise that will swamp these islands. They don’t report that these islands will be inundated anyway due to the natural sea level rise occurring in response to our exit from the last ice age (see Arthur Dent’s second link). Regardless of whether or not our GHG emissions have any influence on sea level, these island will either become submerged, or (if they are founded on coral) grow to continue to exist at the margins of ocean and atmosphere.

Sea level rise is supposed to impact the very low lying nations the most. However, none of the following has ratified the Kyoto Protocol;

Bangladesh, Kiribati, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kyoto_Protoco...

They are coral atoll islands that are nominally ripe for natural change in geometry and size due to natural forces. Keep in mind that at it's highest point the Maldives are only 2.4 m aboove seal level, but the total height of the atoll from sea bottom is much higher. Any change in sea level is goind to be noticeable here more here than just about any island chain in the world.

The maldives are small islands so the rise of water levels is more noticeable there. However elsewhere in the world the rise of water levels is less noticeable due to the size of the continents.

I don't know what you mean by "not at all noticeable in other parts of the world". Sea levels are rising globally, not just in the Maldives. Go to Google Scholar and search for "global sea level rise". That will give you many scientific articles that provide evidence of this.

What is true about the Maldives is that they are a poster-child for the global warming issue. This is because they have an extremely low elevation (I think usually <1m from sea level), which makes them easily susceptible to flooding and disappearing if the sea rises. Perhaps on Yahoo Answers, global warming is "controversial", but to the Maldivians, it is a done deal. They are so conscious of the problem that they are actively seeking to buy land from another country to relocate their country if things go wrong. (Seriously - check this out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/10/...

So noticeable in the Maldives? Only because of a hopeful press that wanted to lure the idiot masses into thinking that 100ppm extra CO2 is causing it. There has been no significant change in the 2 or 3 mm per year of ocean rise for several hundred years.

It was in the news that a seawall gave way. It was blamed on global warming, of course. Why was the seawall built, in the first place?

Actually, sea level has risen 8 inches in the past 100 years. It is more noticeable at the Maldives because they are low-lying.

Sea level does increase at some places more than others due to gravity and weather. I don't know whether it has increased more at the Maldives or why it would have.

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The oldest constant sea level monitor it at California's Golden gate.

http://www.nps.gov/goga/naturescience/upload/sb-gl...

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/topics/navops/ports/s...

Various factors, including gravity and currents, affect sea level rise and cause it to differ regionally,

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2255

http://climate.columbia.edu/?id=faq

http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GRD/GPS/Projects/CB/SEALEV...

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-c...

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It's also insightful to note that Newport Beach, which JimZ so smugly claims is rising, is spending money to reseach the known sea level rise and will probably spend millions to raise their sea wall.

http://dailyvoice.squarespace.com/news/2011/1/21/c...

Newport Beach is not alone. Other cities along the Calif coast will be investing million of taxpayers dollars to adapt to rising sea level.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/06/local/la-m...