National Geographic’s Junk Science: How long will it take for sea level rise to reach midway up the Statue of Liberty?

Count me in as one of those others who found out long ago how biased Nat Geo is and dropped the subscription

The term “grasping at straws” in a marketing/agenda sense comes to mind….

My question would be entirely different, and as usual, more philosophical than scientific. Assuming that this would be a global event, with water at the same level everywhere, is there actually that much water on Earth?

The depicted level is pretty darned close to the absolute maximum possible if all ice in all places (Greenland + Antarctica) were melted and ended up in the oceans.

I haven’t read the story because I knew it would be nothing but propaganda after reading the following in the Editor’s Note on Page 4 of the issue: “Because there are no computer models or scientists to tell us with certainty how fast and how much the seas will rise, it is a challenge to illustrate this story. You could say it requires a leap of imagination. . . “

@ur momisugly cynical scientist
Are you basing that on some formula that estimates the total volume of ice (on land) of Greenland and the Antarctic?

my sub is expired or expiring – if I get that issue I’ll send it back asking them to stop trying to get p*rn in this house, climatic or otherwise

Generation dumb.
I don’t blame National Geographic, they have long since realized that their target audience crave science fiction, the target audience are pop idol fans with limited thinking capabilities. They want a quick scare story to retweet, facebook or share.

Strange coincidence, if as they claim they just made some sort of guess, that their picture depicts almost exactly ALL of the world’s ice melted – no more no less. Since Antarctica started glaciating millions of years before the current sequence of ice ages started, they are portraying a climate something like back in the cretaceous. Even the most rabid alarmist hasn’t done that, have they? (But heck, why not? One lie is as good as another.)

Coincidentally I just wrote National Geographic a letter I’ll post separately, but first I want to correct what you report (by the way, before I even took the wrap off of my issue I was already doing the same calculation you did here regarding the length of time it would take to raise sea levels that high). They do make mention of how long it might take on the “If All the Ice Melted” supplemental poster (it makes the AIT animation look tame by comparison—Florida is reduced to several islands):
[N]o one really knows how long it would take to melt it all. Probably more than 5,000 years, some scientists say.
Followed immediately with this to stay on message:
But if we burn all the coal, oil, and gas, adding some five trillion tons of carbon to the atmosphere, we’ll very likely create an ice-free planet.
Thought you’d also be interested to know that on the page following the poster is almost the exact picture of the moulin in Greenland you used the other day, minus the mention of soot of course. One more quote from the article:
In May the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts for million [actually, no it didn’t], the highest since three million years ago. Sea levels may have been as much as 65 feet above today’s; the Northern Hemisphere was largely ice free year-round. It would take centuries for the oceans to reach such catastrophic heights again, and much depends on whether we manage to limit future greenhouse gas emissions. In the short term scientists are still uncertain about how fast and how high seas will rise. Estimates [such as Hansen’s beauty regarding Manhattan] have repeatedly been too conservative.
And finally another from the poster:
The East Antarctic ice sheet is so large—it contains four-fifths of all the ice on Earth—that it might seem unmeltable. It survived earlier warm periods intact. Lately it seems to be thickening slightly—because of global warming. The warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which falls as snow on East Antarctica. But even this behemoth is unlikely to survive a return to an Eocene climate.
The map points out that East Antarctic contributions to global sea level amount to 175 feet. I’ll share the letter I sent next, where I, like Sully, also noted the “leap of imagination” called for by the editor. I wonder if he’ll answer. Cheers!

All right. So here’s the letter I sent to National Geographic a while ago. I know they would never publish it in part or in full (the lead paragraph offers a nice synopsis though), but I feel better for having sent it. Needed to get some of that off my chest…again. Contents:
The irony is fathoms deep in your ‘alarming’ “Rising Seas” cover depicting the Statue of Liberty half-submerged in the Atlantic, a fantasy piece of such low probability that even the most climate-anxious scientists agree such an outcome would be several millennia away. The only true threat to Liberty is immediate and comes in the form of the relentless surge offered by overzealous propagandists who enthrone the political dictates of activist post-modern pseudoscience to implement an open agenda that aims to control and punish humanity. 
Under the guise of the innocuous-sounding Sustainable Development banner, this edict to de-develop developed nations and cripple the growth of developing nations will do nothing to affect climate but much to promote poverty, wealth destruction, loss of national sovereignty, energy and resource rationing, restriction of property rights, further environmental degradation, and a general continued withering of Liberty. 
Perhaps National Geographic could turn its attention upon that global phenomenon instead of wasting any more of its valuable pages advocating a misguided political and economic philosophy anchored in anti-science, anti-human sentiment, and above all else, abject failure. It is far beyond time that your once-proud society returned to its roots in the scientific method. What passes now for climate ‘science,’ and specifically those issues concerning attribution, is nothing more than a falsely heralded consensus of unfalsifiable ignorance. Even more objectionable is the wanton promotion of this manufactured consensus as robust and unequivocal. It is a farce and a dishonor to those who established the long-standing scientific principles that, like our Liberty, wither as a result. Richard Feynman is rolling in his grave.
One must look no farther than page 127 of the “Rising Seas” issue to understand at least a small portion of what is at play here in the article by Hannah Bloch titled “Failure Is an Option.” She says:
Scientific researchers are reluctant to own up publicly to flops. Reputations and future funding depend on perceptions of success.
Indeed, but the stakes in this case are so much higher than the simple protection of a funding stream, by several orders of magnitude in fact. What is at stake is no less than Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That is no exaggeration when one objectively considers the reality that would be delivered through Sustainable Development.
Before continuing down that road, I did want to also touch upon the Editor’s Note, Sea Change, by Chris Johns. I surmise he was speaking tongue-in-cheek when he said “A catastrophe is playing out in slow motion.” Certainly true Mr. Johns, though not quite as slowly as I’d like. And there is in fact a man-made catastrophe unfolding, we agree, just not the same catastrophe. Yours is a crystal-ball catastrophe comprised of many a could, maybe or might. Mine is a crystal clear catastrophe-in-the-making equating to economic suicide. As is of cue you added this:
Because there are no computer models or scientists to tell us with certainty how fast and how much the seas will rise, it is a challenge to illustrate this story and telegraph the problem’s urgency. You could say it requires a leap of faith in imagination that is grounded in fact. 
Can I translate? 
I confess that the entropic nature of climate requires the concession of great uncertainty, or as Kevin Trenberth put it privately, “We are not close to balancing the energy budget,”  but this will not keep us from using scare-mongering imagery and uncorrelated circumstances to foster anxiety regarding the rise in sea level that has been occurring for millennia and will continue to occur until nature flips the switch back to the next age of glaciation. Despite our knowledge that mitigation will be far costlier than adaptation in regards to efficacy, environment, and economy, we are forging ahead with the mitigation agenda regardless. To keep this agenda on course we must continue to “offer up scary scenarios” and ignore the empirical evidence that points more and more strongly toward natural variability with each passing year. We choose to instead substitute empirical evidence with model-based projection that hinges upon a leap of faith in imagination rather than a foundation in sound science.
I know it is an editorial page with a statement by a photojournalist, but regurgitating unscientific phrases such as “ever more destructive storms” and a “leap of faith in imagination” is an insult to your readership. I am willing to bet that your audience is a far more skeptical bunch than you are willing to concede. Matters as contentious as anthropogenic global warming are best presented from a balanced rather than biased viewpoint, and the attempted stifling of dissent that has been the cornerstone of AGW proponents is a wholly unscientific endeavor that must be abandoned. National Geographic could lead the way were it to choose to do so, and, were it to do so, would assist in restoring faith in modern science tarnished by the stain of activist climate science.
Finally, to lend weight to my previous statements of fact, not conspiracy, regarding the impact of Sustainable Development, I offer figures derived by the UN, its chief promoter. If we continue upon this deviant course instead of the natural course we were following (the UN termed it the Golden Economic Age), by the year 2100 the global GDP will have contracted by $200 trillion ($350 trillion vs. $550 trillion). That equates to a 40% decrease in per capita income for developed countries and a 50% decrease in per capita income for developing countries. Read that again. Eighty percent of humanity lives in developing countries and this agenda aims to cut their projected wealth in half. Please keep that in mind whenever you hear it parroted that these efforts are primarily meant to help the poor. They do the exact opposite and instead will ensure that poverty is unforgivably sustained for the world’s poorest. I conclude with my earlier premise that those propagating this agenda wish only to control and punish humanity. When enough people awaken to that reality, this backward opposition to humanity’s natural course of development, this Golden Economic Age, will be swept aside. My advice to you is to join us to that end, or step aside.