Juneau Alaska rising (local sea level falling) due to global warming (glacial retreat) Of course it is bad! So, sea level rising due to AGW is bad and sea level falling due to AGW is also bad. I give up:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/science/earth/18juneau.html?_r=1

Um, yeah, those areas where the glaciers melt will rise. So, in order to protect Alaska, Greenland and Antarctica, all we need to do is melt the glaciers, and global warming is already doing that! Problem solved, this guy thinks?

Alas for Boston, its glacier has been gone for a long time. Melting the glaciers won’t raise it much.

/parody

Oy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/science/earth/18juneau.html?_r=1

Please provide some evidence to support your wild claims. Note that you make a self contradictory claim that he could fire Hansen yet he was protected via Civil Service from firing. Pick one. Civil Service protects both, or neither.

If Hansen had been making up the science as this fellow alleges, that’s cause. In fact, that’s contrary to federal regulations, and contrary to the laws governing NSF grants, among others. So there would have been no reason to hesitate to fire, if the guy had the goods.

But he feared his own job would be in jeopardy from politicians? He hasn’t read the Civil Service Code. Carrying out the law in firing an employee for cause could not in any case be used as a justification for removal, and the politician would have to make the case with this guy’s boss.

I think this fellow misremembers his work with James Hansen, on several points.

Ah, yes, the “deep water shipping channels” (One named Stockton, the other named Sacramento for the cities to which they connect) … Spooky, isn’t it? Especially from a bit of a distance when all you see is a giant ship ‘sailing’ through the grassland… The freighter is above you partly because the land you are on is often below sea level, partly because the channel surface is significantly above sea level… At one time much of the land of the delta was, well, delta bottom, and that is what you are driving on! Over a very long time folks built levies and “drained the swamp” to make “new land” to farm.

There have been several levy breaks in my lifetime. (Several of the ‘islands’ of the delta are private farm land surrounded by a levy and when it breaks, the ‘island’ floods… then the farmer fixes the break and pumps it out… ) The notion that these levies have just suddenly become fragile and the delta is ready to be reclaimed by the sea is just silly. The whole delta is crisscrossed with channels and levys. A levy break typically just floods the adjacent cell. The notion that, if flooded, it could never be pumped out is ludicrous. Really. We can’t do what was done 50 to 80 years ago? Really? Just nonsense. That it would cost a lot of money, yeah, that’s true… that the farm owners would like someone else to pay for it, yeah, that’s true too.

The major levys are really big compared to the more minor ones (2 lane highway on top – I think it’s hwy 160 runs on top of one past Rio Vista). It’s the minor ones that have sporadic failures. Substantially every levy has a road on top. Major ones are paved public highways. Minor ones are often private roads owned by the farmer who owns the “island”. I’ve driven over hundreds of miles of the levy system (as do thousands of folks every weekend… it’s how you go fishing out there…) over about half a century. (Well, I was a passenger in the earliest of those years, being a kid…) The major levies are NOT going to give out.

And even if they did, the place is almost entirely farm land with a very few sporadic farm houses (that have often been flooded before a time or two). It’s not like N.O. with a lot of “city” at risk. Heck, I don’t even remember there being very many cows… The older bits have the house on a raised patch of dirt. Mostly its just dirt and a barn to hold the equipment.

My guess is that the story is just a ploy to try and get money from someone else to pay for the maintenance. The farmers who own the private levies around their private land have political pull (being rich from owning all that land…) and the government is always looking for more money. So N.O. makes levies an awareness issue and VIOLA! We have an imminent levy “issue” needing public money from the rest of the nation. Right…

FWIW, the “catastrophe scenario” is a major earthquake taking down many of the levies at the same time. One Small Problem… The earthquake faults are about 60 to 80 miles away. If it’s that big a quake, well, there is not going to be much left of the entire S.F. Bay area from Silicon Valley up to San Francisco… since they are sitting directly on top of the faults. Some flooded farm land will the be least of anyones issues.

Don’t get me wrong, the levy system does need consistent maintenance (Trapping muskrats so they don’t tunnel into them. Assuring any surface erosion is repaired. Fixing up the roads on top. Mowing the weeds.) but I just don’t see where that is the responsibility of anyone but the farmers that get the benefit of having “reclaimed” that land… Personally, I’d be just fine with the levies failing and the delta becoming water again. It would even be nicely divided into ponds with banks for better fishing ;-)

But that won’t happen. Politicians just don’t P.O. their major contributors… they hand out pork instead. So you in the rest of the country will eventually pay for a rich farmer to continue having his land to farm since the State has run out of money and the farmer doesn’t want to cut his profits and knows he can leverage his money if it goes to politicians instead of levy maintenance.

(Why the attitude on my part? Having driven past way too many signs saying, basically, “now entering Foo Island, private property, fishing and hunting prohibited” as you drop down from a bridge over some tributary to the back side of a public levy into the private land that benefits from the levy, but is afraid you might steal one of ‘their’ catfish from ‘their’ levy paid for by public money next to a public road …)

For me, the problem of sea level rise concerns what to do with the existing buildings.

I’m sure some nutter will start building subdivisions below sea level in the delta, but for now it’s pretty much empty (at least, the last time I really looked, about a decade ago. Though I’ve heard that Bouldin Island might be building some houses; but haven’t checked it.) So: Almost no buildings, no worries.

You can use a lot of that fill to build wide and reassuring levees. But what are the risks or consequences…underground tunnels…unknown tunnels…will the storm drains have to be pumped out…emergency preparations. I suppose these are questions for someone from New Orleans.

But not for the Sacramento River Delta levies. There are no underground tunnels. No storm drains. Just flat dirt with a low “hill” around it – the levy; and sporadically a farm house (stand alone well, septic tank, etc.) and sometimes a bait shop / bar on high ground near a bridge…

You are only off by a couple orders of magnitude on Jericho’s wall height.
Keep up the good work.

Seriously?

Hmmm. The Dead Sea is about 800 feet below sea level. The mountains that form the barrier between Jericho and the Mediterranean I assumed to be about 2,000 feet high — but they may be lower. I might be off by 1,000 feet, but a 1,000 foot high sea wall is pretty effective, and that’s in the same order of magnitude even if in error. I know the mountains are at least 200 meters high from maps I can quickly pull up — 200 meters is about 600 feet, so that would put them at least 1,400 feet above the level of the Dead Sea.

Clearly you didn’t understand what I was talking about, or you’re completely unfamiliar with geography and geology around Jericho.

All the scare mongering is based on cherry picking, manipulating and bending history and scientific facts.

Totally agree.

I am absolutely not worried about our weather nor our climate.

I’m not worried either. I’m now embarrassed on having taught AGW rubbish in my chairs of ecology and biophysics some years ago. AGW is a very persistent eyes bandage. :)

Just to stir the pot a little, check out this simple back of the envelope calculation that may serve as a response to some of the comments here at WUWT.

Best Regards,
Tom

This is another memory, from a ’60′s drive from SF to Sacramento. Of looking over the Sacramento River levee, and seeing a (seagoing?) freighter…that was above me. This levee was mentioned in Katrina’s aftermath as the probable next to go. And the conclusion was that the resulting lake would become permanent. It wouldn’t be feasible to pump it out.

For me, the problem of sea level rise concerns what to do with the existing buildings. You can use a lot of that fill to build wide and reassuring levees. But what are the risks or consequences…underground tunnels…unknown tunnels…will the storm drains have to be pumped out…emergency preparations. I suppose these are questions for someone from New Orleans.

From Ed’s [rarely visited] blog header: “Striving for accuracy in history, economics, geography, education, and a little science.” [Emphasis on "little" science. Very little.]

Ed refers to another site as “sleepy.” That’s a hoot, since Ed’s site has all of seven (7) comments — and five of those are a conversation between Anthony and Ed. Now that’s a sleepy site!

And Ed isn’t afraid to post his conclusions, right or wrong: “Climate warming is real. The effects of warming are real and quite problematic already.” [Ed's emphasis]

So, Ed, got a question for you: What color is the sky on your planet? Because here on planet Earth, the climate is cooling.