By Viv Forbes, Rosewood Qld Australia
Sea levels have been rising and falling without any help from humans for as long as Earth’s oceans have existed.
The fastest and most alarming sea changes to affect mankind occurred at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age. Seas rose about 130m about 12,000 years ago, at times rising at five metres per century. Sea levels then fell as ice sheet and glaciers grew in the recent Little Ice Age – some Roman ports used during the Roman Warm Era are now far from the sea even though sea levels have recovered somewhat during the Modern Warm Era.
Many natural factors cause sea levels to rise – melting of land-based glaciers and ice sheets; warming and expansion in volume of the oceans; extraction of groundwater which ends up in the oceans; and sediments, sewerage, plant debris and volcanic ash washed into the oceans by rivers, storms and glaciers. In addition, tectonic forces cause some blocks of land to rise while others fall, hence the paradox of sea levels appearing to rise on one coastline while falling on another.
Currently the world’s oceans are rising at about 1mm per year, which has not changed much with the great industrialisation since 1945. Amongst all the factors moving the restless sea, man’s production of carbon dioxide is obviously an insignificant player.
Sea levels are always changing, at times very destructively. Waves move sea levels by a few metres and at places like Derby, WA, king tides can move sea levels by eleven metres. Then there are rogue waves up to 30 metres high which have sunk oil tankers, and tsunamis which can smash coastlines with a ten metre wall of water moving at over 800 km per hour.
Despite coping with all of the above, climate alarmists say we should be scared to death by the threat of seas rising gently at 1mm PER YEAR. Even a slow-moving sloth could escape water rising at that rate.
King Canute showed his nobles that no man can hold back the rising sea. It’s time the climate alarmists learned Canute’s lesson and focussed on real world problems.
Even if we ceased using all carbon fuels for electricity and transport, no one could measure the effect of that huge sacrifice on global sea levels.
For those who wish to read more:
Rising Seas are Nothing New:
http://carbon-sense.com/2013/11/30/nothing-new-about-climate-change/
History falsifies climate alarmist sea level claims:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/endlich-sea-level-claims.pdf
The Ocean Thermometer:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/ocean-thermometer.pdf
Global Mean Sea Levels:
Tide Gauges show that Average Sea level rise is 0.9m per year:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/12/25/average-sea-level-rise-rate-is-0-9-mmyear/
Rogue Waves – the real sea monsters:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rogue-waves-ocean-energy-forecasting/
High Tides at Derby, Western Australia:
http://www.derbytourism.com.au/useful-information/tides
Well said, and hear hear, Mr. Forbes!
I was especially pleased to see that someone got it right about King Canute!
He is regularly mischaracterized as foolishly sitting just below the high tide line to prove that he, King Canute, could control the sea. Unlike the Puppet in Chief in the Whitehouse, however….
King Canute, as you pointed out, used demonstrative evidence to prove that he was no deity to be worshipped, but a mere mortal, just like his subjects.
Go to the city of Baku on the shores of the landlocked Caspian Sea and check out how they cope with the ever changing level of the sea. The Caspian Sea gets its water from the giant Volga river in the north and has no drainage. The level of the Caspian is on average about -28 m MSL, e.g., about 28 m lower than the Baltic Sea. However, because the flux of water in the Volga river changes on a broad scale, in symphony with general rainfall in Russia, the level of the Caspian Sea goes up and down on a decadal time period with a maximum amplitude of about 3 m !
When I visited Baku first time in 1995, they had flooding of the near-shore city parts, including the navy’s base. We were invited to a meeting there and had to enter the second floor of the building instead of the first floor which was flooded. Since then, the water has gone down to a normal level.
> some Roman ports used during the Roman Warm Era are now far from the sea even though sea levels have recovered somewhat during the Modern Warm Era.
Links please?
Even if we ceased using all carbon fuels for electricity and transport, no one could measure the effect of that huge sacrifice on global sea levels.
True.
But this is not about ‘sacrifices’ or sea levels.
It’s about control.
It’s about power.
It’s about creating the ‘sustainable, progressive new world’.
Dont forget that many of the Roman ports have been subject to tectonic influences.
Re: “natural factors {like waves} cause sea levels to rise … {e.g.,} sediments, … .”
Janice,
My Scottish ancestors appreciate Viv Forbes teaching portrait of King Canute as well!
How the heck are you, Sweet Pea?
Mac
I’ve just come from a week on Hornby Island, one of the small islands between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. I’m a geologist, so I was studying the storm wave level of the beach zone. It is clear that the seas used to be higher than they are today but I’m talking about in the last couple of thousand years. The storm zone platform was cleaned and smoothed and LATER rock debris brought onto the platform, including very large boulders from the mainland that must have been ice-rafted, i.e. brought ashore on small icebergs that storms and high tides moved about.
The short-term HIGHER sea levels are obvious to those paying attention and not stuck in the university lounge. This is NOT an isostasy issue: there have been serious new advances of glaciation AFTER a period of higher water level. And don’t say it is just in the areas of Pleistocene glaciation, as I have seen the evidence in Abu Dhabi and read of others reporting similar evidence in Australia.
The near-past, the human civilization piece, had a lot of movement of sea level. Regional variation were great. Globally? Ahh, here we go … it isn’t global if you say its regional, which means that any observation that is non-IPCC can be dismissed as “regional”.
Steve W. says:
June 17, 2014 at 9:19 pm
‘Not far from Walmer are the remains of the Richborough Roman Fort and Amphitheatre, considered by English Heritage possibly the most symbolically important Roman site in Britain, “witnessing both the beginning and almost the end of Roman rule here”. Although it is now 2 miles from the sea because silted up, Richborough was in Roman times a major natural harbour providing a safe route from Europe to the Thames estuary.’
http://www.britaingallery.com/regions/south-east/sandwich.php
‘ More information about Burgh Castle
The changing coast
Map showing Roman coastline
East Norfolk in Roman times
Burgh Castle’s setting has changed a great deal over the last 2000 years. In Roman times sea levels were much higher than they are now and the coastline quite different. ‘
http://www.norfarchtrust.org.uk/burghcastle
The issue of “Roman ports” seems a misdirection. There are well researched places that have received massive sediments. The Seville-Jerez area, for instance, is down stream from ancient mining activities. Have a look by using Google Earth and Street View using these coordinates
36.94318, -5.96753
Another such place is at the mouth of the Büyük Menderes River in Turkey. See this map for a time line:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCy%C3%BCk_Menderes_River#mediaviewer/File:Miletus_Bay_silting_evolution_map-en.svg
The author of this post does mention sediments.
Hi, Mister MacKnife,
Thanks for asking. I’m fine. Just putting a lot more time these days into trying to end my “between jobs” time. It’s been a long, hard, march. Also, kind of tired of getting cuffed about here on WUWT every so often, too… .
I hope that all is bonney with you.
Ye’ve been a right trew comrade, me lad. Right trew.
Take care,
Janice
Unfortunately the warmers never learn anything about geology. Their time frame is 50 years or less.
Steve W.
I was lucky enough to visit the ruins of Efes (or Ephesus as us anglos would spell it) last year as part of a Mediterranean cruise. It was an important port in ancient times:
http://www.ephesus.us/ephesus/port_of_ephesus.htm
It is well worth the visit as this site leaves Pompeii for dead. Hmmm maybe not the best turn of phrase, but anywho…
When I came away from the place in the bus back to Kusadesi at the coast (6 miles away – about 4 miles as the crow flies) climate change/sea level modern day myths certainly crossed my mind a few times. There is a reasonable drop in elevation in returning to the coast as well. Looks on Google earth or maps and the old port harbour is obvious in dark green with a channel going west from it … ending in fields.
Janice,
I haven’t had much time of late to really peruse the blogs. The turmoil of ‘corporate reorganization’ and some grass roots political support work has kept me focused on protecting my teammates as best I can and hoping to have a small but positive effect on the coming elections in November.
Truly sorry to hear of your ‘bruises’ here and I’ll say a ‘prayer for employment’ for ya!
Chin up… and walk with confidence, Kiddoo!
Here’s hoping you can ‘turn the page’ soon!
Mac
http://youtu.be/3khH9ih2XJg
Viv Forbes “Currently the world’s oceans are rising at about 1mm per year, which has not changed much with the great industrialisation since 1945. Amongst all the factors moving the restless sea, man’s production of carbon dioxide is obviously an insignificant player.”
Well the accepted figure seems to be closer to 3mm/y so a bland assertion of “about 1mm per year” without any reference or uncertainty estimation is meaningless.
“not changed much” , “….obviously an insignificant player.”
Is that any better than an alarmists saying ” sea level has rise a lot, currently rising about 10mm/y. Man’s production of carbon dioxide is obviously a significant player.”
This is the sort of unfounded commentary that rightly draws criticism of being “anti-science” and justifies comments of being “in denial”.
” climate alarmists say we should be scared to death by the threat of seas rising gently at 1mm PER YEAR.”
Sorry that is an out and out lie. It is non factual and you know it is non factual. It is also totally unsubstantiated. Provide one quote from anyone to back that up. No one is saying we should “scared to death” about 1mm/y. Is anyone but Viv Forbes even suggesting such a figure? He appears to have just made it up.
Why Anthony chose to publish this I can not understand. It does nothing but justify those who would criticise WUWT and sceptics in general.
Conwy Castle in North Wales is another one where its distance the sea has increased somewhat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conwy_Castle
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g186437-d217973-r156819777-Conwy_Castle-Conwy_Snowdonia_National_Park_North_Wales_Wales.html#LIGHTBOXVIEW
…. and, of course, 5,000-year old Skara Brae in the Orkneys originally built by the sea, which I visited fairly recently, now pretty much sits on a hill !!!
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/propertyresults/propertyoverview.htm?PropID=PL_244
@ Doug Proctor.
Geologist here too. What you are after are the Peron transgressions. I’ve not looked for the Peron beaches, but I’ve seen the two on Rottnest Island. Rottnest also has a fossil coral reef (above sea level) from the Ipswichian interglacial, about 130,000 years ago. Western Australia is tectonically stable, so its not subsidence/uplift.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Older_Peron
That would be …. distance to the sea ….
My very favorite indicator of natural extreme and rapid sea level rise is evidenced by the Cosquer Cave in France. This is a blunt force variety of evidence that the mann-made less than 1 degree rise in temperature that is the evidence of unprecedented warming pales in comparison to what nature does with little effort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosquer_Cave
Ah, it seems the 1mm/y comes for Steve Goddard and is based on _relative_ mean sea level, ie raw tide gauge reading without taking into account movement of the land on which they are sited nor the geographic sampling these sites represent.
So this figure does not represent what Viv Forbes claims it does: “Currently the world’s oceans are rising at about 1mm per year”
>some Roman ports used during the Roman Warm Era are now far from the sea even though sea levels have recovered somewhat during the Modern Warm Era.
==============================================================
A common fate is purely silting up from river sediment. The Romans liked building ports up the tidal portions of rivers. It was handy. Any port like this is likely to silt up without regular dredging.
A couple of examples are Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, and another is Lepcis Magna in Libya.
The Egyptians regularly built or moved their ports on the NIle delta.
Some sink below the waves from tectonic activity, such as Pozzuol (Portus Julius) in the Gulf of Naples. It pops up and down, or down and up depending on what the earthquakes and Vesuvius decide. It was mostly underwater until recently times when some of it was raised (1980).
Sea levels may not have anything to do with it.
The glaciers in glacier national park are about 3000 years old. Sea levels world wide were higher than they are now since like the relatively newish glaciers show, we are not as warm now as most of this interglacial has been. Likewise, the sea level has been higher for much of this interglacial.
Nor is our rate of increase any surprise or shock as it’s been pretty steady as we’ve come out of the little ice age a couple of centuries ago.
Just not much here to get excited about.
Thanks, Mac. Prayer is the best thing you could do for me.
Hope your storm calms down (at that fine but constantly rearranging company, you’ve weathered a few — “And this, too, shall pass.” (uttered by a famous Roman when Ostia Antica was still a thriving port — there! ON topic! (well, sort of) — soon!
“Soon” — my favorite word in your kind remarks. Thanks for the song.
Here’s to voting in Truth in Science reps in November! Good for you!
Janice
********************
Back on topic (I think I hear the sound of angry feet pounding this way…):
“Coastal erosion — two controlling factors: force of waves and composition of shore”
A 1mm sea level rise (if that is even happening) is obliterated as a putative cause. Utterly meaningless to even discuss it.
Further… (cough, ahem)
“New proposal from NASA JPL admits to “spurious” errors in current satellite based sea level and ice altimetry, calls for new space platform to fix the problem.”
The uncertainty is quite clear in Table 1, which has error ranges larger than the data in some cases: … .
Source: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/03/why-ice-loss-and-sea-level-measurements-via-satellite-and-the-new-shepard-et-al-paper-are-highly-uncertain-at-the-moment/
(emphasis mine)
“A widely accepted estimate of the current rate of global-average sea-level rise is about 1.8 mm/y
This estimate is based on a set of 24 long tide-gauge records, corrected for land movements resulting from deglaciation. ”
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter10/Ency_Oceans/Sea_Level_Change.pdf
Steve W. says:
June 17, 2014 at 9:19 pm
> some Roman ports used during the Roman Warm Era are now far from the sea even though sea levels have recovered somewhat during the Modern Warm Era.
Links please?
====
It’s in one of the links provided, though that’s not clear in the article.
History falsifies climate alarmist sea level claims:
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/endlich-sea-level-claims.pdf
@ Greg Goodman — thanks for that (at 11:11pm) — nice work!
Janice
I can see a Roman tax coming, as they clearly are the cause of rising sea level!
Steve W. says:
June 17, 2014 at 9:19 pm
//////////////////
Actually, I think that it is predominantly Greek Ports that are now stranded far from the sea. I have seen numerous programmes on archaelogical digs that have commented that this place used to be a port in ancient rtimes. I recall that one programme involved a dig of a site that used to be a port of ancient Greece but was now some 50 km from the sea.
Of course, you can also see lower sea level/river levels in the Thames. In Medieval times there was a river entrance to the Tower of London which now has insufficient draft for boats, and some of the docks/wharfs along the side of the Thames suggest that water levels were higher even just a few centuries ago. Whether this has something to do with siltation, I do not know.
I have not researched this so there may be some other explanation, but an example of a place that is now high and dry is:
Priene (Ancient Greek: Πριήνη Priēnē; Turkish: Prien) was an ancient Greek city of Ionia (and member of the Ionian League) at the base of an escarpment of Mycale, about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north of the then course of the Maeander (now called the Büyük Menderes or “Big Maeander”) River, 67 kilometres (42 mi) from ancient Anthea, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from ancient Aneon and 25 kilometres (16 mi) from ancient Miletus. It was formerly on the sea coast, built overlooking the ocean on steep slopes and terraces extending from sea level to a height of 380 metres (1,250 ft) above sea level at the top of the escarpment.[1] Today, after several centuries of changes in the landscape, it is an inland site. It is located at a short distance west of the modern village Güllübahçe Turun in the Söke district of Aydın Province, Turkey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priene
See also: http://www.bodrumpages.com/English/miletus.html
The ancient city of Miletus was once one of Ionia’s most important ports, but is now stranded 10 kilometres inland. It is situated south of Izmir, in the province of Aydin, 20 kilometres north of Didyma
Greg Goodman says:
June 17, 2014 at 10:30 pm /
//////////////////////////////
The TRUTH is that no one knows whether sea levels are rising, and if so by how much.
Measurment of sea levels is notoriously difficult, ripe with errors, and the data taken as a whole is contradictory.
There are many ports all over the world that show no sea level rise. There are some places about 50 miles apart where one place will show a rise, and the other no rise!
Realistically, we cannot measure to millimetres per year. Perhaps we can measure 6 cm over a period of 20 to 40 years.
Put simply, qualative data does not exist for either side of the debate to make out a strong case.
You have to be very cautious using historical examples of sea level change from tectonically active areas such as the Mediterranean. Vertical movements can be very large and rapid. I am familiar with and have visited the coast (mountainous/rias) in closest proximity to the Tohoku earthquake epicentre. Harbour quays that previously had about a metre of freeboard were awash. That’s just one event.
Also, areas responding to ice sheet melting are still going up, and areas peripheral to the ice sheets are still going down as the mantle material flows back to where it was displaced from. For example, in the UK, land north of a line going approximately from the Humber to the Severn is rising, and land south of that line is sinking.
Comments from known facts due to exvavation analyses and dating of sedement layer on land and in sea together with basic knowledge in geology and Natural procedure:
Sea levels ARE NEVER an EXACT fixed VALUE.
SEA LEVEL VARIES:
* During a day (between a high and a low mark not only due to tides) less seen in the Baltic Sea than in oceans. Examples from the Östergötland’s Baltic Sea coast, of yearly high-year low results in a difference in water with 1 m. In open sea the distance from a fix GPS-point to the Earth’s mid point can vary up to 50 meter/day.
* During a year. The moon and the sun’s position relative to the earth gives in
the difference in the form of spring and neap tides. Sea streams speed and density variations (saltination)
Season shown variations. Not only do our Earth have season variations from winter, spring, summer and autumn due to moon and sun’s position visa vi a specific point. There are also dry resp. rainy periods under any chosen thousand year period.
This is due to three main factors:
1. Water in any form always tries to reach the lowest point relatively the mid of the Earth. This is due to water’s chemical form as well as gravidity; temperatures in air and water changing drastic after major vulcano eruption/-s.
Example: After a serie of vulcan eruptions in 1341 from Greenland to Iceland the temperature level fell more than 4 degrees Celsius within a twenty year long period. (Please look up The farm beneath the sand, archeurope.com where you will read about a farm that saw this happening suddenly between 1341 and 1360. The farm wasn’t seen again before late 1900’s. It wasn’t even possible to dig the farm before 1990.
2. Landrise. All ice on land and in water “act” in accordance to Archimedes principle Please note: Ice in water never ever will make the sea level rise when melting!
When ever land ice weighted down land, the ice melting first is where the land first will rise. Please observe than landrise is a retarding movement. The rise is faster in early stage than in later. Thus there always are differences within short distances. (normally a place 800 meters from an other point doesn’t have same rising speed neither in early period nor in later. Alike but never the same.)
3. Different types of soil species and mountain formations causes a varying reception capability over larger areas as well as over time.
These factors are seen and needs to be taken into every calculation where sea levels are calculated. Due to wind-; temperature- and water erosion these factors’ importance wary around the world and also within a country; a state or a larger town.——
As for the major uplift in sea level refered to in the article it was during a period
11570 BP to 10800 BP the rise occurred. Main reason for this was that a hugh inland-sea had been formed in the area we today call the Baltic Sea due to melting Inland Ice. Östersjöns utveckling, landhöjning English translation: “Baltic Sea development landrise. The sealevel rised 151 meters before withdaweing due to landrise.
Same occurred in two other areas in the Northern Hemisphere during same period short after the break thru of water out to the Ocean causing major effects around what then was the sea we today call Atlantic. Land between Norway-Scotland and Denmark was overflooded with effects over on the other side of the Atlantic as well as quickly melting ice at that time covering parts of northern Atlantic from Alta in Norway over to northern Canada.
As for rising sea levels !! do you know the history of Harlech Castle ??
When it was built in 1283, the sea washed up at the base of the outcrop of rock. Fresh supplies were sent from Ireland by sea, arriving via Harlech’s water gate as the artistic reconstruction below shows.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Reconstruction_of_Harlech_Castle.jpg/250px-Reconstruction_of_Harlech_Castle.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlech_Castle
Since then, the sea has receded to form a broad sandy shoreline, about a mile away.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Harlech_Castle_-_Cadw_photograph.jpg/330px-Harlech_Castle_-_Cadw_photograph.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlech_Castle
http://www.british-towns.net/attractions/castle/harlech-castle
If you look around you will find numerous examples of sea rise & fall, read your history, study geology. Climate, tectonic plates, sea levels, temperature have all been constantly changing (usually violently ) for 4+ billion years, we’ve only been here for a few million, (some believe only 6,000 !!).
Nature does what nature does, we can’t control it, IT controls us.
Greg Goodman:
I write to ask the intended purpose of your series of posts in this thread which seem to be pure ‘knocking copy’.
The first is a long rant at June 17, 2014 at 10:30 pm in which you write
That is strong stuff. It accuses Viv Forbes of “an outright lie” which is “non factual” and “totally unsubstantiated” that “He appears to have just made it up”.
But your accusations are completely false and they demonstrate you were more eager to attack the essay than to read it. This is proven by your subsequent post at June 17, 2014 at 10:54 pm where you write
In other words, when you read the essay you discovered that your accusations of “lie” and “unsubstantiated” in your boorish rant are untrue but – despite that – you again falsely claim Viv Forbes is making a false claim.
But Viv Forbes essay was NOT making a false claim because the essay very clearly discusses “relative_ mean sea level, ie raw tide gauge reading without taking into account movement of the land on which they are sited nor the geographic sampling these sites represent”. The essay was stating that this is the practical sea level change with which people need to cope. Indeed, you admit it says this when you pretend to be clever by posting a reply to Steve W at June 17, 2014 at 11:11 pm.
Hence, it is blatantly obvious that your accusations of mendacity are completely devoid of merit but could validly be applied to you. So, I write to ask the intended purpose of your series of posts in this thread.
Richard
A couple of years ago I wrote Part 1 of ‘Historic variations in sea levels’
http://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
Here is the much longer and more detailed version.
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/document.pdf
Basically, after the initial surge at the start of the Holocene, sea levels have oscillated around a metre or slightly more, with a high stand in Roman times and another around the 13th and 16th centuries.
We are still below Roman levels but all this is greatly complicated by location, as the land levels change in relation to the sea. In some areas the land is rising in others it is falling.
The second link in particular deals in detail with this aspect. There is also tectonic activity which can make huge differences to apparent sea/and levels.
tonyb
King Canute was not from Holland. The Dutch built a large dam in the North Sea and literally drained the sea with water pumps. They turned sea into land the size of 14 cities of Paris. Rising sea? No problem we’ll drain the sea said the Dutch king.
What individual locations show for sea level change varies a lot (a little like some individual temperature stations show cooling over the past century even as most show primarily warming, which was in a double peak pattern), like El Ninos can affect sea level over thousands of miles by a number of centimeters. The overall global average rise/fall, though, as may be approximated with an appropriate sample of stations distributed over the continents, follows a repeating and logical pattern.
As an annual average, it isn’t 1 mm/year except in some years. For instance, after temporarily higher rise, it was temporarily negative in 2010-2011 and will be again by ~ 2020; the why and the history are as illustrated in my usual http://www.webcitation.org/6PsOoxWKN illustration enlarging on further click.
The world expert in sea levels, Prof Nils Axil Morner, has stated that sea level measurements are very difficult to calculate given the variables and the need for a stable base of measurement. But current rise is 1-3mm/annum.
At the end of the last ice age the GBR was dry land and started building about 8000years ago.
Steve W. says:
June 17, 2014 at 9:19 pm
> some Roman ports used during the Roman Warm Era are now far from the sea even though sea levels have recovered somewhat during the Modern Warm Era.
Links please?
==========================================================
http://www.ostia-antica.org/intro.htm
Dr Strangelove Said
> King Canute was not from Holland. The Dutch built a large dam in the North Sea and
> literally drained the sea with water pumps. They turned sea into land the size of 14
> cities of Paris. Rising sea? No problem we’ll drain the sea said the Dutch king
Well not exactly. Last time I looked out of the window the North Sea was still there 🙂
The Zuiderzee, an enclosed bay off the North Sea, was largely created in 1287 when rising sea levels during the Mediaeval warming period aided by storms created as the climate entered a period of rapid cooling broke through the coastal sand dunes and inundated the area killing an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 people.
During this period storms also reshaped the coast of Southern England wiping Old Winchelsea off the map and leaving ports like New Romney and Lydd stranded miles inland while changing the course of the River Rother all in a single winter !
The driving force behind the reclamation was the great 19th/20th century Dutch engineer Cornelis Lely and it didn’t begin until 1916 when yet another great flood prompted the Dutch to finally build the dam that sealed the breach through which the sea had flooded.
tonyb:
Thankyou for your post at June 18, 2014 at 12:38 am that includes very informative links.
Of import is its statement
Yes, and this goes to the crux of the essay by Viv Forbes. It says
and
Richard
Here’s my tuppence worth on sea-level rise: it’s a non-issue.
Down in the Southern hemisphere, in New Zealand, (a small island
nation swimming in the South Pacific) sea level rise over most of the
twentieth was determined to be 1.7mm per year.
( Hannah, J. and Bell, R.G. 2012. Regional sea level trends in New
Zealand. Journal of Geophysical Research 117: 10.1029/2011JC007591)
” …. for the last two decades the assessment of relative sea level
trends in New Zealand has been solely derived from the sea level
records obtained from the four main port tide gauges of Auckland,
Wellington, Lyttelton and Dunedin, where the only long-term (>70
year) data sets exist.”
and:
“the average relative sea level rise calclated from the six newly derived
trends was 1.7 ± 0.1 mm/year … [which] is completely consistent with
the far more rigorous and conventional analyses previously undertaken
for the four main ports using long-term tide gauge records.”
COLE, T; 2010. An Acceleration in New Zealand’s Sea Level Record?
MSc Dissertation, Otago University, after searching diligently for any
possible acceleration of that gentle and slow rate, concluded
“The investigations into the presence of an accelerating trend within the
datasets from Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton and Dunedin with significant
decadal and interdecadal signals incorporated, did not find a significant
acceleration.”
Her analysis accounted for possible tectonic movement and subsidence
of the tidal gauges which proved to be well constructed, well sited and
well installed. She accounted for this with GPS, along with possible lunar
and solar tidal forcings for both land and sea.
The 1.7mm per annum = 17mm per decade or 170mm per century, or about 6.5 inches per century. It’s a NON-ISSUE.
Harlech Castle is another example in Wales. In the Middle Ages, it was built next to the sea. Now it is a mile or so inland.
And this in area where the land is slightly sinking.
Darn: keyboard! The surveys used tide gauge records from
1905 to about 2008, so they cover most of the twentieth century.
I’m not sure of the stopping year, other than it’s recent. I’m
too lazy to go look it up. If you really need to know, google the
papers and read them.
Anyone who gets caught by rising sea levels and drowns deserves to have their genes removed from the pool.
How much sea level rise is due to humans claiming land from the sea? If large areas of land, holland, east anglia UK are artificially drained and claimed from the sea does this impact the sea levels?
Paul Homewood
Most of the southern half of the UK is sinking is it not? This means that any silting has to out weigh both sinking land and rising sea, The A496 at the foot of Harlech Castle has an elevation of about 15-16 Metres, most of the area between the A496 and the sea is at about 6-7 Metres. That’s an awful lot of slit! As far as I’m aware there have been no reports of major tectonic activity in North Wales during the last six centuries. To me it just doesn’t add up
Sandy
Harlech castle had a sea gate which was accessed by a wide creek. I took part in an archaeological dig there once and you need to strip out silting, but taking that into account the sea levels remain below where they were when the castle was built.
tonyb
Sandy
I wrote here on Harlech castle several years ago. Here is a relevant extract;
———– =========
Sea castles in the UK built in the 13th century are now often stranded above the sea level entrances which ships used to re-supply them.
This links leads to a 1913 book on Harlech castle-one such building which is now high and dry-nothing to do with stasis or deposition, but that sea levels are lower now than when it was built 1000 years ago. Suggest readers select the b/w pdf
Link 14
http://www.archive.org/details/merionethshire00morr
Extract
“In 1409 an attack was made upon Harlech, led by Gilbert and John Talbot for
the King; the besiegers comprised one thousand well armed soldiers and a big siege train. The besieged were in the advantageous situation of being able to receive their necessary supplies from the sea, for the waves of
Cardigan Bay at that time washed the base of the rock upon which the castle stands. Greater vigilance on the part of the attacking force stopped this and the castle was surrendered in the spring of the year.
A remarkable feature of the castle is a covered staircase cut out of the rock, defended on the seaward side by a looped parapet, and closed above and below by small gatehouses. This was the water-gate of the fortress,
and opened upon a small quay below.”
Link 15 The following pictures show the current location of the sea.
http://westwales.co.uk/graphics/morfaharlech.jpg
Link 16
Sea in far distance from Harlech castle
http://westwales.co.uk/graphics/harlech.jpg
and this
Link 17
http://www.buildmodelcastles.com/html/castle_history.html
very good item about Harlech
Link 18
http://www.walesdirectory.co.uk/Castles/Harlech_Castle.htm
—— ——–
tonyb
Tectonic plates movement is slow but relentless. In the Adriatic sea, not far away from my home, roman roads built into rocky hillside are now few meters under sea level, while Italian shore on the opposite side has moved up.
Tectonic plates movement is slow but relentless. In the Adriatic sea, not far away from my home, roman roads built into rocky hillside are now couple of meters under sea level, while the Italian shore on the opposite side has moved up.
Changing sea level is geology 101. Trying to place current change on thermal expansion & CAGW if folly when viewed through the geologic lens of time. Some links to a couple geologic based sea level curves :
Last 30 MY :
http://www.sepmstrata.org/page.aspx?pageid=164
Last 250 MY :
http://geology.uprm.edu/Morelock/3_image/cretsl.gif
Martin Hovland may be right about the Caspian Sea rising rapidly, but he is absolutely wrong about its cause. He also does not highlight the fact that its level fell equally sharply some decades earlier. The reason? The Russians dammed the Volga in a number of places and diverted its flow. Later on, they let the water pass. In the first place they wanted the water for agriculture and industry, in the second they wanted it to pass through for hydroelectric generation. The majority of the water in the Caspian comes from the Volga, so the changes are as simple as turning the tap off, and then on again. Climate change has nowt to do with it, and (apart from the point that it starts as rainfall to get into the Volga), neither is there any changing rainfall pattern to blame either!
The sea is retreating at the northern end of the Baltic Sea due to the land rising up now that the ice sheets from the last ice age have gone.
Say what? Sea levels are averages over time, so waves and tides are not involved in the calculations. Rogue waves and tsunamis are non sequiturs as far as sea levels go. Tsunamis may travel rapidly out at sea, but slow down dramatically when near shore. This nonsensical paragraph severely degrades this essay and should have been edited out.
richardscourtney says: June 18, 2014 at 12:31 am
“But Viv Forbes essay was NOT making a false claim because the essay very clearly discusses “relative_ mean sea level, ie raw tide gauge reading without taking into account movement of the land on which they are sited nor the geographic sampling these sites represent”. The essay was stating that this is the practical sea level change with which people need to cope.”
I see none of that in the essay. I see just an unqualified statement:
“Currently the world’s oceans are rising at about 1mm per year, which has not changed much with the great industrialisation since 1945.”
No source is given, and as Greg says, it’s wrong.
65% of tide gauges….show sea levels falling
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/sea_level_not_rising.pdf
the ruins of Efes
===========
We also visited the ancient Roman port of Ephesus – now many miles inland. We were on a bus tour of Turkey and were amazed at how many famous places in the ancient world were actually in modern day Turkey.
For all the hype about sea level rise, it is amazing how little there is. Docks and sea-walls built 50 to 100 years ago, still perfectly serviceable. You would think they would all be under water given the hype.
Can someone actually point out any place on earth where high tides – not driven by storm surge – not a result of land sinking – are actually higher than the surrounding structures? Because we never saw any evidence sailing around the world. Even at high tide, anything that was built on rock was still above high tide. It was only those structures built on sand or mud that were threatened, which is more the fault of the builders than of sea levels.
Tide gauges are useless for ‘global sea level because of techtonics, isostasy, and groundwater/delta compaction to mention just a few geological problems. Satellite altimetry has existed since 1993. The most recent bird is Jason 2. Excluding the modeled GIA component of 0.3mm/year, the average SLR over that period is 2.8mm/ year. But it was about 3.1 until about 2004, and is only 2.4 from then to the present, probable indirect physical evidence for the pause.
This leads to the so called closure problem. Estimates of ice sheet mass loss (glaciers, Greenland, Antarctica e.g. Via GRACE or ICESat estimates) plus Argo based estimates for thermosteric rise sum to about 2mm/year, not 2.8. There is therefore provable uncertainty, likely in all three values. The world is a big place, and 2.8mm/year is a small number.
But 1mm per year is sufficiently off to raise questions about the rest of the post.
Latitude says:
==========
Sea level is not rising
Professor Nils-Axel Mörner
At most, global average sea level is rising at a rate equivalent to 2-3 inches per century. It is probably not rising at all.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/sea_level_not_rising.pdf
“When the satellite altimetry group realized that the 1997 rise was an ENSO signal, and they extended the trend up to 2003, they faced a problem they had not expected: there was no discernible sea-level rise visible, so that a “reinterpretation” of the raw data needed to be carried out in order to obtain the desired result.”
“The fact of this “reinterpretation”, which turned a near-zero trend in sea-level rise to a trend of 2.3
mm/year (later 3.2), was orally confirmed by a member of the satellite altimetry team in 2005 when I
attended a meeting on global warming held by the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Exactly what was done remains unclear, as the satellite altimetry groups do not specify the “corrections” they carry out.
page 12:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/sea_level_not_rising.pdf
Gary:
Your post at June 18, 2014 at 6:15 am completely misses the point of the article by Viv Forbes.
In total your post says
The paragraph makes perfect sense and summates the purpose of the article.
The paragraph says there are much larger changes to sea level than mere “averages over time”, and it states some. The argument is that preparation for sea level change needs to accommodate ALL the likely changes at a location, and when that is done then defence against e.g. storm tides would provide defence against foreseeable “averages over time” so they can be ignored.
Richard
I agree with Richard Courtney that Greg Goodman would benefit from reading Miss Manners. I agree with Goodman, though, that all claims in a commentary on sea level rise should be fully documented or provide links to primary sources; also that it’s unhelpful and even counterproductive to present 1 mm/year of sea-level rise as accepted fact when “consensus” science claims the rate is three times faster. Ignoring the 3 mm/year claim is bound to raise suspicion that the ‘skeptic’ either does not know what he is taking about or is trying to confuse the public.
There is general agreement that the current sea level rise is approx 3mm per year and not the 1mm per year as stated in the article above. An error such as that gives ammunition to the climate warmmongers to claim that the skeptics are anti-science. An increase from approx 1mm per year 200 years ago to 3mm per year today would appear to be a drastic increase in sea level rise which would support to a limited extent the AGW theory.
That being said, a rise of 1mm or 3mm per year (which ever you choose to believe tis the more accurate measure) when comparing over a 5,000 year or 10,000 year period is indicative of a very stable sea level and very stable climate.
Assuming for arguments sake that the HS is an accurate reflection of the temps over the last 1,000 years, the recent uptick would support AGW. However, when comparing the last 5,000 to 20,000, even with the claimed spike, is indicative of a very stable climate.
Nick Stokes:
I acknowledge your post addressed to me at June 18, 2014 at 6:26 am . It is plain wrong in every particular and says
I have no method to assist your reading comprehension. I can only quote from the article and ask you to try to understand what it says; e.g. this
I do not understand how you failed to read what I have quoted for you and that you failed to understand what was meant when it says “Even a slow-moving sloth could escape water rising at that rate”.
Furthermore, the reference you missed was mentioned by Greg Goodman in his reply to Steve W at June 17, 2014 at 11:11 pm.
Richard
If you choose to build expensive property and infrastructure in such a way that a 300mm sea level change would be a disaster, you are a fool.
What worries me is that we are this far into the knee. The ride back down will not be fun. We should be telling our grandchildren to pop out as many babies as they can and make sure each and everyone of them are schooled in cold survival skills that they can then pass on to their children. These glacial episodes kill lots and lots of humans who are “generation after generation dumb”.
I think WUWT has taken a big hit on this one. I forwarded the link to my email list and got this response back:
This reference says sea levels are rising about 2.9 mm/yr. Significant difference from the 0.9 mm/yr that your climate change denier site gives.
http://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/sod/lsa/SeaLevelRise/LSA_SLR_timeseries_global.php
In 2012 NOAA issued a full analysis of global sea level using all available data for the period of 2005 to december 2011. This official report supports the 1 mm per year claims.
The sum of steric sea level rise and the ocean mass component has a trend of 1.1 ± 0.8 mm/a over the period when the Paulson GIA mass correction is applied, well overlapping total sea level rise observed by Jason-1 and Jason-2 (1.3 ± 0.9 mm/a) within a 95% confidence interval.
The above numbers represent the globally averaged changes in sea level and have magnitudes on
the order of millimeters per year.
For those who want to see the full report just google the title of the report.
The Budget of Recent Global Sea Level Rise
2005–2012
by Eric Leuliette
Jim Butts:
re your post at June 18, 2014 at 12:07 pm.
It does not matter whether you want to have a references battle about 1 or 3 mm per year sea level rise. If sea level rise were 6 mm per year the above essay would still be right.
The essay argues that preparation for sea level change needs to accommodate ALL the likely changes at a location, and when that is done then defence against e.g. storm tides would provide defence against foreseeable sea level rise of a few mm per year. As the essay says
Richard
Greg Goodman says:
June 17, 2014 at 10:30 pm
“Sorry that is an out and out lie……”
=================
Wow,
I’ve been mistaken, uninformed, misinformed, and down right stupid.
To call me a liar though, takes it to a whole other plane.
I think you owe Viv an apology.
Whether right or wrong.
I understand there also are places hundreds of miles from the shore where there are beaches on the sea floor. What once was the coast became the sea floor, way way way out at sea. Changes can be sudden and dramatic.
Whatever you do, do not quote the sea level rise from the satellites.
It is fake, just like almost everything in climate science.
Sea level rise using as many tide gauges as possible (and it appears that something approaching 400 widely-disbursed stations is really required) combined with local uplift/subsidence rates provided by GPS stations which have a long enough record to give a reliable signal, indicate that current sea level rise is between 1.4 mms/ yr to 1.8 mms/yr. This rate has been constant since about 1980 but was lower before this date. Sea level was about 2 metres higher about 5,000 years ago, 120 metres lower 20,000 years ago, 4 to 6 metres higher 125,000 years ago and was 265 metres higher 94 million years which flooded large portions of the continents.
“sophocles says:
June 18, 2014 at 2:26 am”
Interesting. I am not convinced of the accuracy (1.7mm/y) in the quote you make given the nature of New Zealand straddling two tectonic plates. Wellington (And region) in particular has risen upwards due to earth quakes. Evidence for this is on Lambton Quay, the airport, and also if you look out towards Pencarow Head.
Keith
The Dutch king is mythical but the dikes are real. The Dutch have been building dikes since 70 AD. By 1250 they completed a 126-km long dike. They had a long history of taming the sea before King Canute was born.
Viv said:
Even a slow-moving sloth could escape water rising at that rate.
The issue is not whether people can “escape” water rising at that rate, a statement like that is an insult to the communities already affected, such as farmers in the Mekong River Delta:
http://www.mrcmekong.org/the-mekong-basin/stories-from-the-mekong/living-on-the-edge-of-the-rising-sea/
Of course they can escape, but they’ve lost their livelihood, that’s the issue.
Those of us whose life and living have been tied up with seas, shores, and land, know that sea level changes are insignificant, not really findable in the noise. We find the same from research of old levels (same with temperatures). For crying out loud, I live on an inland raised beach, and am not fearful except of tsunami. Brett Keane, New Zealand
Chris,
Continued isostatic sinking of the delta while the fluvial sediment flux has been reduced by the construction of 30 dams within the Mekong basin dams will have had a significant local impact on their livelihoods.
Chris:
I am getting very frustrated at the repeated misrepresentations of the excellent argument provided by Viv Forbes in his above article. Clearly, Viv Forbes’ argument is very good when nobody disputes it but many try to misrepresent it.
The most recent misrepresentation is provided by your post at June 18, 2014 at 8:45 pm which says in total
NO! The “insult” to those people is provided by your assertion that their real problem should be ignored and the trivial sea level rise addressed instead.
The essay by Viv Forbes argues that preparation for sea level change needs to accommodate ALL the likely changes at a location, and when that is done then defence against e.g. storm tides would provide defence against foreseeable sea level rise of a few mm per year. As the essay says
The reasons why delta sedimentation is not increasing their land area need to be addressed if they are excessive. It is a local issue of sea inundation in the Mekong Delta and – as the article by Viv Forbes asserts – local actions to address it are needed. The trivial few mm/year of “sea level rise” are not relevant.
Richard
Richard,
I am not sure what you are talking about. You say
NO! The “insult” to those people is provided by your assertion that their real problem should be ignored and the trivial sea level rise addressed instead.
I said nothing of the kind, tell me where I stated that their real problems should be ignored. You then say
The essay by Viv Forbes argues that preparation for sea level change needs to accommodate ALL the likely changes at a location, and when that is done then defence against e.g. storm tides would provide defence against foreseeable sea level rise of a few mm per year.
His essay does not say that. Please quote the exact lines where he says or implies that. In fact, he states “King Canute showed his nobles that no man can hold back the rising sea. It’s time the climate alarmists learned Canute’s lesson and focussed on real world problems.” If anything, Forbes is saying that it is pointless to make efforts to hold back the sea.
Greg Goodman
Jim Butts
Chris
et al.
For Sea Level trends, consult the NOAA mean SL charts for the U.S. coasts. These settle the issue and they show that SL has been steady, not rising, for over fifteen years. All gauges on the west coast show a flat trend, as do all gauges on the Gulf coast, with the exception of Grand Isle, La, which is undergoing rapid susidence. All NOAA gauges on the east coast show this flat trend, up to the Chesapeake Bay sites, which record the subsidence of that area as a rise in SL.
I agree that there has been a lot of fabricated SL rise that has gained currency. The U of Colorado is one of the worst of these.
BW, I Googled NOAA’s publication, “The Budget of Recent Sea Level Rise 2005-2012.” When I clicked on what looked like the appropriate link, what came up instead was NOAA’s 2012 State of the Climate: Sea-Level Rise (http://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/2012-state-climate-global-sea-level). This Web page, dated July 31, 2013, states: “Global average sea level in 2012 was 1.4 inches above the 1993-2010 average, which was the highest yearly average in the satellite record.” While acknowledging that sea levels fluctuate from year to year, NOAA’s chart indicates a recent trend substantially greater than 1 mm/year: “Since satellite-based global measurements began in 1993, global mean sea level has risen between 2.8 and 3.6 millimeters per year (0.11-0.14 inches/year).”
I just found Budget of Recent Sea Level Rise but am limited at the moment to slow dial up and still waiting for the PDF to open.
Marlo Lewis:
Note that your NOAA link uses Satellite data, not the NOAA sea level gauge information. The reason is that satellite data can be rigged, as in this study, which is a product of the University of Colorado, the notorious fabricator of sea level rise. Tidal gauge data is not so easily rigged.
If you go to this link, you will get a pop-up from the U of Colorado for a survey response.
Chris:
Your post at June 19, 2014 at 6:59 am purports to be a reply to my post at June 19, 2014 at 1:50 am which is here.
Your post says to me
Don’t come that with me, sonny. If you did not want to be called on it then you should not have written it, and you did.
I was replying to your post at June 18, 2014 at 8:45 pm which says in total
Clearly, you were asserting that the few mm per year sea level rise that “Even a slow-moving sloth could escape” was causing their loss of livelihood and, you said, “that’s the issue”.
It is NOT “the issue” and I said it is not.
Not content with claiming you did not write what you did, you follow that by claiming the article does not say what it does when you quote my saying
and reply
The article says
You try to misrepresent that as “it is pointless to make efforts to hold back the sea”. No, it says it is pointless addressing the trivially small rise that “Even a slow-moving sloth could escape water rising at that rate”.
Richard
Richard,
I’ll try one more time. Forbes mentions big events that we are “coping with” as a way saying that sea level rise is trivial and unimportant by comparison. He is mixing together 2 very different issues. Large scale disasters such as typhoons, tsunamis and rogue waves hit locations unexpectedly, and preparation is mainly around warning systems, evacuation plans and perhaps some preventive measures such as planting mangroves. Japan suffered a terrible tsunami a few years ago, but even a wealthy nation like Japan cannot afford to build dykes or blocking islands along its entire coastline – it would be cost prohibitive. Therefore, the kinds of “coping” mechanisms he alludes to simply do not exist, outside a few exceptions like gates on the Thames and what the Netherlands has done.
While sea level rise does not have the short term catastrophic impact of these events, it will have long term impacts, and, unlike a tsunami, will affect 1000s of kms of coastline.
Chris:
Your post at June 20, 2014 at 9:33 am begins saying
I object to you again trying to misrepresent Forbes’ article.
You lied about what you wrote, you lied about what Forbes’ article says, and when that is pointed out you don’t withdraw and/or apologise but again attempt misrepresent what Forbes wrote.
Forbes did NOT only talk about rare events but also about tidal ranges and large waves.
Sea defences (e.g. walls) need to cope with those and they do. Those defences need maintenance and any maintenance can incorporate adaptation to changes since the previous maintenance.
The trivial rise of so-called mean sea level is so small and so slow that it can be ignored.
Forbes is clearly right about this. And you mention one illustration of it. The Thames Barrier is needed because the South East of England is sinking back into the Earth as response to the end of the last ice age. So, London needs the protection of the Barrage from an effect of isostatic rebound and the trivial rise of so-called mean sea level is so small and so slow that it can be ignored.
Richard
Mpainter,
I was not aware that University of Colorado Sea Level Research Group is a notorious sea level rise fabricator. They claim their satellite data are calibrated and corrected with tide gauge data (http://sealevel.colorado.edu/). Questions: (1) Is there solid documented evidence of such fabrication? (2) When it comes to global temperatures, skeptics prefer satellite data to surface station data. Only satellite data come close to being global. They are not affected by local distortions due to urban heat islands, improper siting of thermistors, inhomogenious equipment, gaps in station histories, and more. Why doesn’t the same logic weigh in favor of satellites for global sea level measurement? (3) Tide gauge data must be adjusted for land subsidence, which can increase relative sea level in coastal cities up to 10 times as much as global factors such as ocean warming and melting glaciers, according to an article recently posted on WUWT (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/05/01/in-some-coastal-cities-subsidence-now-exceeds-absolute-sea-level-rise-up-to-a-factor-of-ten/). To me, that suggests tide gauge data can easily be gamed to inflate sea-level rise. Not so?
Richard,
Wrong again, and as your other posts have always shown, you go into attack dog mode when you fail to win an argument. You completely missed the main point I made, and in fact provided 0 refutation of it.
Sea walls, dykes and other man made defenses are NOT an option for the majority of global coastlines – the costs would be prohibitive. In particular for third world countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam. They are NOT being built in SE Asia where I live, even in tsunami prone places such as Indonesia – the cost is too high. So pretending that these defenses are in place around the world, and that increased sea levels are inconsequential to these defenses is completely disingenuous thinking.
Your comment “The trivial rise of so-called mean sea level is so small and so slow that it can be ignored” is patently false, and has already been proven to be so in places like Vietnam, where sea gauges have measured increases of between 1.75 and 2.65 mm/year, and they area already seeing impacts of sea level rise.
http://ir.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp:8080/bitstream/123456789/5368/1/No84p45.pdf
The trivial rise of so-called mean sea level is so small and so slow that it can be ignored” is patently false, and has already been proven to be so in places like Vietnam, where sea gauges have measured increases of between 1.75 and 2.65 mm/year, and they area already seeing impacts of sea level rise.
1.75mm to 2.65mm per year is in fact trivial
Chris:
I am replying to your offensive and untrue post at June 21, 2014 at 9:49 am.
Your claim that I did not answer your main point is fallacious. I have answered each point you have made, and you cite none which I have missed.
I have not lost any arguments because you have provided no arguments. And I have refuted all of your lies and misrepresentations with facts, quotations and simple logic.
I have not adopted an “attack dog” attitude. On the contrary I have been both polite and restrained in my responses to your blatant lies and twaddle.
Importantly, you again ignore reality and post nonsense. Please check your fallacious assertions before posting them. For example, Bangladesh is expanding because of delta accretion: its effective sea level is falling and not rising as you assert.
And as joe_dallas says at June 21, 2014 at 10:08 am
Please raise the standards of your behaviour.
Richard
Your comment “The trivial rise of so-called mean sea level is so small and so slow that it can be ignored” is patently false, and has already been proven to be so in places like Vietnam, where sea gauges have measured increases of between 1.75 and 2.65 mm/year, and they area already seeing impacts of sea level rise.
http://ir.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp:8080/bitstream/123456789/5368/1/No84p45.pdf
Chris
I just read the article you cited – the “peer reviewed” study has the standard projection of a 1meter rise in sea level by the year 2100. Do you realize that in order to achieve a 1 meter rise in seal level in the next 86 year, the rate of sea level rise has to increase by a factor of 10x-15x.
Why is it that the warmists ignore basic science.
Marlo Lewis
Please excuse this tardy response.
Go read the fine print at the U of Colorado at their sea level site. Their satellite SL data is plotted on a sloped base. The slope is invented (they say theoretical). They also invent an expansion of the volumes of the ocean basins (again, they say theoretical). By various subtrifuges, they invent a sea level rise which they present as a measured fact. It is pure invention.There is no sea level rise in a general world-wide sense. This is confirmed by the NOAA tidal gauges- go see the NOAA mean sea level charts for the various stations on our coasts- there are some 30-40 of these. These show a flat trend for the last 15-20 years or so. The Chesapeake Bay stations show a rising sL, but this merely records the subsidence of the area, which see. Otherwise, with one or two exceptions, all NOAA gauges for the west coast show a steady SL trend, as do all Gulf Coast gauges and East coast gauges (as far north as Virginia). The exceptions record either local uplift or susidence.
Now here is the matter- we can believe the NOAA gauges as a certainly. If the SL on US coasts is steady, without rise, can the rest of the world’s oceans be rising? To argue so is absurd.
Marlo Lewis
More on the fabrication by the U of Colorado. Any tidal gauges that they cite as supporting their data of rising sea level is most likely to be a subsiding gauge. Subsidence registers at the gauge as a rising SL, and in fact subsidence has the same practical effect as a general rise in SL at that particular shore. But local subsidence is not a general world-wide rise in SL, such as when meltwater is added to the oceans at the end of the ice age.
It is an assured fact that they can offer no US gauge data as support unless it is a subsiding gauge. Unadulterated satellite data should show a steady SL trend.
Richard, you have repeatedly ignored my main point, which is this: Forbes says that rising sea levels are inconsequential in comparison to the types of large scale phenomena that affect coastal areas. The large scale phenomena include tsunamis, rogue waves and king tides. He implies that because we are already “coping” with those, that any impacts of sea level rise are insignificant in comparison. The kind of coping solutions countries are putting in place – early warning systems, better evacuation plans, etc, are not in any way barriers to the disasters. There may be a few exceptions such as the Thames, Netherlands, but those represent a fraction of a percent of global coastlines. When Viv can point me to projects where countries are building 1000+ km long dykes/breakwaters/barriers to prevent these disasters, then I’ll gladly acknowledge his point. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a red herring.
Nils-Axel Morner is probably the world’s expert on sea level changes. He has recently published a paper entitled: Deriving the Eustatic Sea Level Component in the Kattaegatt Sea.
Astract: Changes in global sea level is an issue of much controversy. In the Kattegatt Sea, between Denmark and Sweden, the glacial isostatic component factor is well established and the axis of tilting has remained stable for the last 8000 years. At the point of zero regional crustal movements, there are three tide gauges indicating a present rise in sea level of 0.8 to 0.9 mm/yr for the last 125 years. This value provides a firm record of the regional eustatic rise in sea level in this part of the globe.
Full Text: http://www.as-se.org/gpg/Download.aspx?ID=16723
Chris:
Your post at June 25, 2014 at 10:19 pm begins saying
NO! Absolutely not!
I have “ignored” nothing you have written and I have repeatedly objected to your blatant misrepresentation of Forbes’ article which you have again repeated and I have here quoted.
I see no reason to refute that bollocks again so I cite my post at June 20, 2014 at 9:57 am which is here and completely rejected it.
Richard