Rocks from the White Cliffs of Dover and the California coastline paired with silt from the world ’s large rivers are driving the global rise of sea stage . That is , if you live in some substitute creation whereRep . Mo Brooks , a Republican from Alabama , is in charge of all the scientific discipline .
In a hearing Wednesday , theHouse Committee on Science , Space and Technologymet to discuss howtechnologymight be used to address climate variety . alternatively , the two - minute affair turned into an all - out public debate on whether clime modification can be attributed to anthropogenic factors .
Philip Duffy , President of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and a former elderly adviser to the US Global Change Research Program , explained to the panel that it ’s no co-occurrence sea levels have fluctuated since humans appear on the major planet .
" The rate of global ocean - degree procession has accelerated and is now four time quicker than it was 100 years ago , " Duffy told the board .
Brooks was n’t picking up on the datum Duffy was throwing down .
“ lease ’s assume for a instant that what you ’re talking about has some sort of actual , intellectual fundament for it , that ice has melted . Are there other factors ? ” he asked .
These “ factors ” Brooks is referring to is plain that of rivers carry dirt and rocks into the sea and causing levels to rise .
" Every metre you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is fix into the sea , that forces the sea levels to ascend , because now you have less place in those oceans , because the bottom is moving up , " he said .
The earreach speedily turn into a verbal sparring match when Duffy told Brooks his dirt hypothesis would have “ miniscule effects ” on “ human clip scales ” . Here ’s a quick shot :
Brooks went on to say that , with regard to Antarctica , the total ice sheet is increasing . To be fair , he ’s not whole wrong . ocean deoxyephedrine wall Antarctica get to a record high in2014 , but at the fourth dimension it was only about a third of the order of magnitude of rapid release . per year , the planet has beensheddingsea ice at a rate of 35,000 straightforward klick ( 13,500 square miles ) . A NASAreportlast twelvemonth demonstrate sea crank around Antarctica hit its lowest extent ever recorded by satellite . In fact , NOAA just confirm that April was the400thconsecutive calendar month with warmer - than - fair temperatures .
The two major drive of spheric sea point rise , accord toNOAA , are caloric expansion due to the warming of the ocean and increase melt of shabu on lands , like glaciers and ice sheets .
See for yourself . Brooks comes in at 1:23:57 .
