Global warming's local threat

The term "global warming" can obscure the very local threat posed by climate change. Representatives of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, a coalition of environmental groups, came to town last week to offer that reminder with the help of a video showing images that reflect the stunning level of flooding threatening the Charleston area if the sea level rises by a mere four or five feet.

As retired Duke Professor Orrin Pilkey, the keynote speaker at a panel discussion at the Charleston County Public Library, told us during a visit to this newspaper: "The peninsula of Charleston is very, very low."

So, evidently, is the Arctic Ocean's level of sea ice, which has dropped to its second lowest level since satellite observations of it began nearly three decades ago. It might even soon fall below last year's record low.

Those updates came Wednesday from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, where senior scientist Mark Serreze warned of a "tipping point" in a self-accelerating cycle of melting ice, warming water and warming air. NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally told The Associated Press that the Arctic could be free of sea ice in summer in "five to less than 10 years," adding that "climate warming is also coming larger and faster than the models are predicting and nobody's really taken into account that change yet."

But as Dr. Pilkey warned, while the melting of sea ice in the Arctic is ominous, the melting of ice on land — including Greenland and the Antarctic — is even more alarming. That's because ice that melts in an ocean doesn't by itself raise the level of that ocean, but ice that melts on land near an ocean generally drains into that ocean, raising its level.

Refusing to acknowledge global warming and its potential consequences won't make them go away. And refusing to do something about them could become increasingly hazardous around here, where we would suffer severe front-line consequences from even a moderate rise in sea levels.