Images spanning 130 years show non-effects of sea level rise
By Steve Goddard
Above, imaginary alarmist imagery: London Drowning from the BBC
One of my favorite CAGW climochondrias is worry about sea level. From Wikipedia:
Hypochondriasis (or hypochondria, often referred to as health phobia or health anxiety) refers to an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness. Often, hypochondria persists even after a physician has evaluated a person and reassured them that their concerns about symptoms do not have an underlying medical basis or, if there is a medical illness, the concerns are far in excess of what is appropriate for the level of disease.
Warming to Cause Catastrophic Rise in Sea Level?Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic NewsUpdated April 26, 2004Most scientists agree that global warming presents the greatest threat to the environment. There is little doubt that the Earth is heating up. From the melting of the ice cap on Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest peak, to the loss of coral reefs as oceans become warmer, the effects of global warming are often clear. However, the biggest danger, many experts warn, is that global warming will cause sea levels to rise dramatically.
The esteemed Dr. Hansen has made the threat clear :
a study led by James Hansen, the head of the climate science program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University, suggests that current estimates for how high the seas could rise are way off the mark – and that in the next 100 years melting ice could sink cities in the United States to Bangladesh.
That sounds serious. New Year’s Eve in Manhattan could be rough if Times Square was underwater.
But I keep thinking that if sea level was rising significantly, some of the billions of people who live along the coasts might have noticed? My favorite snorkeling beach in California is The Cove in La Jolla. I first went there around 1960, when Raquel Welch (Tejada at the time) was named Homecoming Queen at La Jolla High School. I went snorkeling there again last summer. The beach is still there and hasn’t changed. Below is a photo of The Cove from 1871.
https://www.sandiegohistory.org/timeline/images/80-2860.jpg
And a recent photo :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/090207-LaJollaCove.jpg
And here is the animation with the two images matched to scale and overlaid:
(click on the image to see animation if is is not visible)
A lot of erosion has occurred over the last 130 years. In the blink animation above (click on the image to see animation) note that the rock under the three people standing on the right in the 1871 image is gone, and has formed a small island of boulders with three people sitting on it in the recent image. There is no evidence that sea level has risen.
A few Palm Trees have been planted, but the sea appears to be in exactly the same place it was 130 years ago. In fact the rocks on the upper right are higher above the water now than in the earlier picture (high tide.) There is no glacial rebound in San Diego, and the faults in the region are strike-slip (horizontal) faults. They don’t cause vertical movement. Prior to the March quake this year, the last large quake to hit the region was in 1862.
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/FaultMaps/117-33.gif
The land in La Jolla hasn’t moved up or down in the last 130 years. Neither has the ocean. Where is this sea level catastrophe happening? On a sandbar? At current melt rates, it will take 300,000 years for Antarctica to melt.
Often, hypochondria persists even after a physician has evaluated a person and reassured them that their concerns about symptoms do not have an underlying medical basis or, if there is a medical illness, the concerns are far in excess of what is appropriate for the level of disease.
WUWT has hundreds of thousands of readers around the world. If any of you have personally seen sea level rise at your favorite beach over the last few decades, please speak up!
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Dave Wendt
May 1, 2010 at 10:04 pm
That map is junk. Have a look at the bay of Bothnia (northern end of the Baltic sea), where it indicates a sea level *rise* of c. 10 mm/year, and compare with Bengt Abelson’s post from the same area above.
” pat says:
The best evidence should be from a stable deep water island near the equator. And there are none.”
What about Jarvis island in the Pacific?
They did a full survay in the 30’s before they build the lighthouse and settled it.
It is very interesting that we get comments from around the world. This kind of “empirical observation” is hard to discount. There are also those who state that “the sea has been rising for 150 years, but the increase has declined, which flies in the face of the observations stated here. Who to believe. My money would be on the empirical evidence, mainly due to the fact that global SL would be very hard to measure without huge error bars and other variables included. It has been shown that gravitational effects can vary and thus change the “height” of sea level. The oceans are not “smooth”, but you still need a boat to water-ski !! http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Earth–Atmospheric–and-Planetary-Sciences/12-808Fall-2004/A740D69D-9E59-401D-89E9-BE2F0EFD0194/0/course_notes_3b.pdf
David Ball
If a scientific organisation which depends on global warming research money says something is true, it must never be questioned.
HaroldW: thank you for the links.
Sea level rise is regional and the effect of sea level rise is often negated by rebounding continents and wind. Come on already.
Doc, isn’t Jarvis a coral island. Coral islands by definition seem historically subject to their own height movements, independent of the sea.
How about differences in tide between the two photos? If we are looking at high tide in one and low tide in the other, then maybe there is indeed a change in sea level.
Data collected from the La Jolla Tidal Gauge from 1925 to 2006 was analysed by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California. The average sea level change at La Jolla, where these photos were taken, was an INCREASE IN SEA LEVEL of .725 feet/century or an increase of 2.2mm per year. This figure is near the 1.8mm/yr worldwide increase for this period given in the scientific literature and recently supported by satellite data. Certainly, data is this form in more reliable when measuring sea level rises of around 9 inches than attempting to match tidal times and perspectives from old photos.
REPLY: Perhaps, but is there any study to show that the gauge has remained static? -A
What no one seems to have mentioned is tectonic plate movement, surely that also has an effect on Sea Levels?
I know it is slow, but they are very large.
It has been said for some time that in the UK the mainland is rising in the North and sinking in the South.
etudiant says: (May 1, 2010 at 4:14 pm) Mike, 1.8mm/yr over 130 years translates to 234 mm, about 9.2 inches. Most places that swing will get blurred by the tidal swings, but the evidence for even this amount of increase is not that good.
This Wikipedia article on this topic also says that sea level has been rising at 1.8mm/yr for the past century and data from 23 long tide gauge records in ‘geologically stable environments’ indicate a sea level increase of about 8 inches per century. The article also says that recent satellite measurements are indicating rates between 2.8 and 3.1 mm/yr attributed primarily to thermal expansion. Yes, it is conceivable that these measurements could be corrupted by systematic errors such as long-term wear an aging effects or satellite orbital decay and calibration problems.
At one time, a decade or two ago, I recall hearing urgent appeals for donations to save the city of Venice from the inexorable rise of the sea which was then threatening to engulf the classic city. Perhaps that problem was fixed as the city seems to be doing fine as far as I know.
LearDog says:
May 1, 2010 at 5:14 pm,
And Flynx and others.
Splitting hairs is a desperate form of debate. Try to keep the scale of the idea in mind. The issue of little change in La Jolla plus, with the wonders of modern electronic communication, which allows a worldwide survey of sea level observations to generate itself in minutes, is valid rejection of CATASTROPHIC sealevel rise. The same is true of brimstone fires of hell allegedly awaiting us in 2100. What on earth is it going to take to get the faithful to begin to question the hysteria of CAGW. Please tell me that you are at least a little less fearful of the AGW armageddon than you were in the heady fresh-faced days of the early words of the prophets. Please admit, that although hell and highwater still disturbs your sleep, that it seems that it is going to take longer than your were led to believe. Please tell me that, gee, we are going to have to wait maybe a few decades longer than our thought mentors and ourselves had expected for the arctic to be ice free and balmy. Please tell me that, gosh, it is disappointing that the consensus overhyped and cooked data on GW and that their predictions are more than a little off the mark in time and intensity. Lets at least revise downward a bit the uptrend to the end of the world. Can we reach a middle ground like this in the debate, which indeed has only really started in earnest since the dissenting crowd has been allowed in to the party? There is no disgrace in changing your mind, at least in part.
Actually, I always believed that sea levels do rise. About twice a day at the last count.!!
People have noticed. There have been numerous papers written on the subject. One example:
http://academics.eckerd.edu/instructor/hastindw/MS1410-001_FA08/handouts/2008SLRSustain.pdf
Showing images of regions that have been selected for the specific purpose of trying to make a spurious claim isn’t an argument. Most of these are probably at low tide anyways.
They are funded to research many things other than global warming. I do not agree with everything from NASA ( especially GISS ) and my point was to demonstrate the difficulty in measuring sea level and sea level change ( much like global average temperatures or snowfall depths ). Curiously, the gravitational variations are very similar to the maps that show cosmic microwave background variations. Read nothing into that other than the similarity in appearance.
Some years ago I was involved in a situation in which a 60,000 ton tanker suddenly nose-dived when proceeding, with a pilot, in a buoyed channel off the Louisiana coast. An oil pollution resulted (nothing new under the sun!).
In court it was shown that the channel had become 5 feet lower than normal! Apparently on that section of coast there had been a sustained offshore wind, for several weeks, and this contributed to the decline (in the sea level, not, you know what!).
Large ships can nose-dive if running at a depth too close to the sea-bed and the reduced sea level brought the ship into it’s shallow water effect zone aka “squat”, and it, well, squatted down. It was pretty hot out there that summer.
My question is, “How does this relate to sea water rising”?
Just an idea that I had today ,when we observe that nothing has changed on the earth it could be because nothing has changed, if this was accepted this could lead to a revolution in the study of climate.We would not have to assume that certain factors were masking the changes that we were expecting to see due to global warming.
tty says:
May 2, 2010 at 9:03 am
Dave Wendt
May 1, 2010 at 10:04 pm
That map is junk. Have a look at the bay of Bothnia (northern end of the Baltic sea), where it indicates a sea level *rise* of c. 10 mm/year, and compare with Bengt Abelson’s post from the same area above.
I said it was interesting, not that it was accurate, although I do think it is probably an accurate representation of the much touted and supposedly superior satellite record. For my current view on that record I would refer you to this comment from a previous thread.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/30/climate-craziness-of-the-week-msm-jumps-on-alarming-headline/#comment-380896
It’s a bit redundant, as I have posted very similar comments a number of times over that last couple years. Someone actually chimed in to agree with me on this one, which is a bit unusual, since my evident brilliance is most often overlooked around here.[For you very literal minded types around here who generally fail to get my sense of humor, that was an attempt at a self deprecatory joke] Though having someone agree with me is modestly exceptional, what would be more exceptional would be if someone jumped in to challenge my argument. Despite there being, as there almost always is, several ardent AGW supporters active on the threads where I’ve posted this in the past, no one has ever bothered to set me straight. Whether this is due to the exceptional brilliance of my logic or to my incoherent blatherings being rightfully ignored, I will leave for others to decide.
>>A few Palm Trees have been planted, but the sea appears to be in
>>exactly the same place it was 130 years ago
And likewise in the Mediterranean, and that is a better example because it has no tides to alter the situation.
And this is not simply photos from the 1800s, but also ports built in the Roman era. Not much change as far as I can see (well, a max 30cm increase in the last 1500 yrs).
speculativebs says:
May 2, 2010 at 11:40 am: If you look at the sources for that paper, you will find all the usual suspects in the climate issue. Hansen, Santer, Wigley, a discredited model (E.M.Smith just loves the fortran, don’t ya know, /sarc) just to name a few. Have you not been paying attention?
Sea levels rising is supposed to be a consequence of polar ice caps melting right which are largely lumps of ice floating on water? So by the basic theories of physics and displacement if the temp was to rise in these areas and cause the ice to melt then it would only start to cause the sea levels to rise if the ice was running from the land into the sea and not just metling into the water below which it had previously been displacing? But how about this for another theory. If the temperatures were to rise around the world generally then more evaporation would occur so could the water level not in fact drop? as with higher air temperature less of that water would come back down as rain!?
I think 90% of global/enviromental issues are just the governments way of getting a level of control on everyone.
We having been monitoring the world for a very insignificant amount of time compared to it’s existance. It’s been hit by a giant meteor and frazzled, had cold spells . What’s to say everything happening to the world is all an entirely natural cycle that it goes through and nothing or little to do with us?
I just don’t want to hear anymore stories from Virginia or South Carolina about sea leve rise taking over the land. They already know that the land is sinking! It’s not the sea level rising!
The only thing I ever notice at the beach anymore is erosion and since I live above sea level, I don’t notice, won’t notice, and don’t care if the sea is rising
http://www.smhi.se/polopoly_fs/1.8629!Svenska_havsvattenstandsserier_-_En_klimatindikator.pdf
This is a link to a Swedish survey, started in 1774 yes 236 years.
Result 1,5 mm/year, no visible change in rate the last 50 years.
The report is in Swedish, but most of you will understand at least the graphs .
Ratan is (in parts of Sweden) known as the place where the last (latest) battle between Swedish and Russian troops took place, in 1809.
Dave Wendt:
May 2, 2010 at 12:19 pm: Response: Do not be troubled, Mr. Wendt. I get the chirping crickets more often than not. I can only speak for myself, but I usually do not respond to posters whom I agree with. Suffice to say that I do enjoy your posts. All posts are important, pro or con. At least people here can decide for themselves which are more important. The crux of the matter is that people have the freedom to decide for themselves whether a post has validity or not.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >I do not see that freedom on unrealclimate or DepropagandaBlog. When Andrew Weaver’s lawyer ( funded by Jim Hoggan and company, big surprise there) subpoenas my father to appear in court, I suggested to father that he present all the vitriol written about him on DepropagandaBlog (hey, funded by Jim Hoggan, too. Isn’t that strange?). Weaver is such a baby. “Wahhhh, they said bad things about me and my work. wahhh.” It is a harsh world, especially for an invertebrate.