By Steve Goddard
The World Cup was bad news for Holland, but that isn’t what I am talking about.
The world’s preeminent climatologist Dr. James Hansen (who is well known for quiet understatement) has forecast that Holland will drown in the next century. Looks like East Anglia is doomed too. Is that a bad thing?
If that isn’t bad enough, NASA’s Cape Canaveral, Key West, and Miami are toast!
Dr. Hansen says :
I find it almost inconceivable that “business as usual” climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.
According to the University of Colorado, sea level has been rising at 3.2 mm/yr since 1994, and has generally been slowing down over the last five years (except for the El Niño spike.)
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg
That means it will only take 312 years to rise one metre. Which is not far off from what it has been doing for the last century.
It is imperative that we make plans to protect Holland. First step is to hire Hansen to put his finger in the dike. Second step is to teach their strikers how to kick the ball somewhere besides straight to the goalkeeper.
At least they didn’t lose a penalty shootout this year.
I, for one, will miss Holland.
On the bright side, rising sea levels will mean either Antarctica or Greenland will be available for summer holidays. I like holidays.
Whilst Hansen is OTT as usual, it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years. The Somerset levels in the UK are already experiancing problems. People will have to adapt, the question is when, now or in 200 years?
Jimmy’s set a bit of a riddle
Are GISS temps a fact or a diddle?
Model E is a fail
But the check’s in the mail
So he’s happy just taking the piddle
Intresting picture, but where is the “IJsselmeer” and the “Wadden zee” in the 2007 picture? I know that it is an engineers wetdream to turn these bodies of water into fertile farmland, but last time i looked it was still al water.
stumpy says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:15 am (Edit)
it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years.
Oh Noes! SIX INCHES.
To the hills!
“I find it almost inconceivable that “business as usual” climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.”
Not, surely, as “inconceivable” as the fact that this wearly old charlatan can still find somebody keen to publish his shroudwaving beliefs.
He reminds me of those shambling old figures you always used to see with billboards announcing “The End of The World is Nigh.”
Perhaps the nice people from NASA should sit him down and show him:-
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
just to calm him. That should assuage his immediate anxieties.
Then, when the men in white coats show up they could coax him to work through:-
http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/appendix3.html
So, what the sea level was when the big flood struck in 1953, 20cms lower?
IF sea level is rising, has he considered the continuous flow of solids flowing from the land and settling on the ocean floor? How about the growth of volcanic islands? How about the huge ships, which have been floated and when loaded, displace a tremendous volume of water? How about the increases in land, added in Taiwan, Japan, HOLLAND, etc..? How about the massive amounts of water pulled from the ground, which adds to surface waters through run-off (including dissolved minerals)?
Again, IF sea level is rising, I think we need to set up siphons from ocean to deep valleys (Dead Sea, Death Valley) and fill them with sea water. As evaporation removes the water, more will siphon in. More evaporation will create more clouds, rain and errotion and volume of the oceans… oh well, never mind. 🙂
Stuff changes. Too many people think the world is supposed to remain the same forever, except for all the changes which happened in the past (“pre-historic”).
Science has a god-complex – we must be xausing everything and we must fix everything.
“People will have to adapt, the question is when, now or in 200 years?”
As I can’t swim, I have already adapted by choosing to live on the top of a hill. At the current rate, Star Trek will be a reality long before my coffin floats off in the encroaching tide.
What I find intriguing about the warmistas is that any mention of real problems, such as the Gulf oil spill, the potential collapse of the Euro, global Jihad, Katla, etc etc, tend to get shrugged off as irrelevancies.
We are not dealing with rational people.
Typo correction in my last sentence:
Science has a god-complex – we must be everything and we must fix everything.
🙂
What happened? I must fix this[!]
Typo correction in my last sentence:
Science has a god-complex – we must be CAUSING everything and we must fix everything.
🙂
The Dutch have a saying: “God created the world in seven days, and the Dutch created the Netherlands.” I guess that they will go on creating it, mm by mm.
Coastlines change over the centuries and millennia. This is a fact regardless of AGW. Should we try to change the global weather to protect the current coastline, or should the problems be resolved locally? Or, more to the point: Should we adapt nature to suit our needs, or should we adapt ourself to nature?
Al Gore says the water-level will rise at least 1974 meters.
http://sapientsparrow.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/al-gores-newest-climate-horror-book-a-scary-fairytale/
Cuba and neighbourhood submerged, Panama transformed to international waters and more than 60 countries will be flooded.
Anthony, you’ve won! I know it doesn’t look like it just yet, but it’s pretty obvious from the news statistics. The Russel-whitewash was their last hope of regaining the heady heights of media interest in 2007 and yes it gained 20% extra interest, but that interest has flopped post whitewash publication. Except for the story itself, there’s been no revival in global warming hysteria and more than likely this marks an increasing slide into oblivion for the warmist cult.
And the one thing that never occurred to me being “past it”, is that the death knell of any fashion fad amongst the young “anti-establishment” generation is to find that now your fashion fad is being championed by deep-throat establishment like Sir Muir Russell (soon to be Lord).
Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)
The Character of Holland
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,
As but th’ off-scouring of the British sand;
And so much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heav’d the lead;
Or what by th’ ocean’s slow alluvion fell,
Of shipwrack’d cockle and the mussel-shell;
This indigested vomit of the sea
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety.
My observation, as a result of living by the sea for 70+ years in Northern Australia, is that the 3mm/year as detailed above is probably accurate. The “experts” from the Southern Hemisphere “peer reviewed society” have told the Australian people the rise will be 2 metres or more within the next century, and that increase will warrant major changes in land use.
I recall a major Queensland newspaper quoting a retired State Premier as saying that the Gold Coast high rise buildings may need to install lifeboats on their 3rd. floor, and make ship like prepartations. Of course we have Tim Flannery in Australia guiding some of our politicians, the national broadcaster ABC, and some school principals.
I really feel sorry for the children that these people influence.
How do we change this direction.?
Academics beat observers every time if no PhD qualifications are quoted by the sea observer. I have a senior medical doctor friend, who has also a geology degree as well. He went to Anthony’s presentation in his home city, and he said that he was ashamed
by the way that some of the AGW demonstrators tried to high jack the media interested in covering the meeting with stunts and abuse.
Fear not, simply make and wear huge wooden cloggs. Problem solved.
I’m beginning to suspect that Hansen may be a frustrated stand up comedian desperately trying the get out of the closet. Unfortunately he only knows one joke and it’s wearing very thin.
I’m from East Anglia. It is made up of mainly dull and flat sugar beet fields. Large chunks of land were reclaimed from the sea by Dutch engineers……..
In conclusion: I agree we wouldn’t miss much if it fell below the waves and became the sea again.
Oh dear…best to put our house in the Netherlands on stilts to prepare for the pending doom. 😉
As someone who lives in east anglia, norwich actually, although I see the joke, no it would not be a good thing. The land lost is would be the low lying agricultural fens, which would halve uk food output. So let’s hope hansen is wrong.
I find it almost inconceivable that “business as usual” climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.
I find it inconceivable that Hansen still has a shred of credibility left.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
Warning! Non-peer-reviewed anecdotal personal observation follows! I grew up on Long Island’s north shore, and there were two car-sized boulders (souvenirs of the last glacier) on an isolated section of the shoreline that marked the high point of a spring tide — the water just touched the base of the larger.
Skip ahead fifty years.
I visited the boulders three years ago at the apex of a spring tide and the water level was one sixteenth of an inch above the base of the larger rock. If the water level continues to rise at that rate, in another hundred years, the base will be inundated by a full three-sixteenths of an inch.
Poor Netherlanders. I don’t know how they’ll cope with it…
I thought if you took the Dykes away most of the Netherlands would be under water?
East Anglia’s coastline has been changing continually for centuries. In some instances, the sea has swallowed up land that used to be inhabited in medieval times (e.g., the town of Dunwich) but this is well understood and is due to long-shore drift. In other epochs, land has been created, due to sea levels receding since Roman times, when there was a great estuary stretching inland almost to where Norwich is now. Sea levels would need to be higher than where they were a couple of thousand years ago, for CRU to be in any danger (or my family, for that matter, who live in Norwich.)
The seas have been on the rise very slowly over the last millennium, and the land has been sinking (again very slowly) due to post-glacial rebound. As far as I am aware, it amounts to two or three millimetres a year, at most – on the other hand, the local impacts of erosion (e.g., Dunwich) would appear to be far quicker and much more dramatic (relatively speaking.)
From history, the answer would appear to be to protect human settlements with sea defences, as long as it is practicable and affordable – and otherwise to engage in a strategic withdrawal when it is no longer an option. But we really are talking about the long term here.
T’is a tragedy, but I never expected the Dutch to win the World Cup. In all honesty, as a Holland supporter, I think de Jong should have been sent off for the Jackie Chan tackle, but hey… it was an ugly game.
Just back from a study trip to some farms in Holland. The best ground (Below sea level already) is valued at 75 to 85000 euros/hectare and the banks are happy to lend against this land to a proportion of the value far higher than in the UK, which presumably means they think the ground is going to continue to appreciate! I don’t think they are taking global warming seriously, plenty of windmills though, but they have a lot of subsidy on their output.
Robert says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:20 am
Intresting picture, but where is the “IJsselmeer” and the “Wadden zee” in the 2007 picture? I know that it is an engineers wetdream to turn these bodies of water into fertile farmland, but last time i looked it was still al water.
Good observation, Robert.
I might add that the southwestern part of the Netherlands (named Zeeland, that is Dutch for Sealand) consists of islands surrounded by water, since many thousands of years. If mr Hansen is giving such a misrepresentation of the current situation, how much credit does he deserve for his predictions?
Dr. Hansen says :
I find it almost inconceivable that “business as usual” climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.
As opposed to feet and inches? It already is, Doc, steady at 0.0032 meters per year.
I’d like to stick around to see that event, but
der Leiterour leader has just appointed a newdeath panelhealth carecommissarczar and therationing“best practices” manual is probably gonna leave me on the outs.Having a little trouble with the keyboard today. Can’t find my bottle of WiteOut.
It does seem that the image from Greenland, in the last page of the report, is photoshopped. Can someone confirm?
Ecotretas
tallbloke:
150mm sounds bigger. It could sound even scarier by expressing in µm
“Dr. James Hansen (who is well known for quiet understatement) has forecast that Holland will drown in the next century.”
Ah, the Great Prophet of the IPCC religion of CAGW has spoken again, and has shown that the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons of mankind in the form of another catastrophic flood!
However, his previous dire warnings have all come to nought. What a complete load of old cobblers doth this man speak. Beware of the folly of these false prophets who mistake the majesty of natural climate oscillations for the puny hand of man.
What excellent science being practiced by Mr. Hansen. It might just be good enough to pass muster in … Hollywood. Perhaps he could team up with Mr. DiCaprio. Why should Mr. Gore have all the fun in making fantasy films? But he’d best steer clear of Mr. Costner (of Waterworld fame).
Tenuc says:
July 12, 2010 at 2:16 am (Edit)
Ah, the Great Prophet of the IPCC religion of CAGW has spoken again, and has shown that the sins of the father will be visited upon the sons of mankind in the form of another catastrophic flood!
I’ll tell you an old-fashioned story
That Grandfather used to relate,
Of a joiner and building contractor;
‘Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite.
In a shop on the banks of the Irwell,
Old Sam used to follow ‘is trade,
In a place you’ll have ‘eard of, called Bury;
You know, where black puddings is made.
One day, Sam were filling a knot ‘ole
Wi’ putty, when in thro’ the door
Came an old feller fair wreathed wi’ whiskers;
T’ould chap said ‘Good morning, I’m Noah.’
Sam asked Noah what was ‘is business,
And t’ould chap went on to remark,
That not liking the look of the weather,
‘E were thinking of building an Ark.
‘E’d gotten the wood for the bulwarks,
And all t’other shipbuilding junk,
And wanted some nice Bird’s Eye Maple
To panel the side of ‘is bunk.
Now Maple were Sam’s Monopoly;
That means it were all ‘is to cut,
And nobody else ‘adn’t got none;
So ‘e asked Noah three ha’pence a foot.
‘A ha’penny too much,’ replied Noah
‘A Penny a foot’s more the mark;
A penny a foot, and when t’rain comes,
I’ll give you a ride in me Ark.’
But neither would budge in the bargain;
The whole daft thing were kind of a jam,
So Sam put ‘is tongue out at Noah,
And Noah made Long Bacon* at Sam
In wrath and ill-feeling they parted,
Not knowing when they’d meet again,
And Sam had forgot all about it,
‘Til one day it started to rain.
It rained and it rained for a fortni’t,
And flooded the ‘ole countryside.
It rained and it kept’ on raining,
‘Til the Irwell were fifty mile wide.
The ‘ouses were soon under water,
And folks to the roof ‘ad to climb.
They said ’twas the rottenest summer
That Bury ‘ad ‘ad for some time.
The rain showed no sign of abating,
And water rose hour by hour,
‘Til the only dry land were at Blackpool,
And that were on top of the Tower.
So Sam started swimming to Blackpool;
It took ‘im best part of a week.
‘Is clothes were wet through when ‘e got there,
And ‘is boots were beginning to leak.
‘E stood to ‘is watch-chain in water,
On Tower top, just before dark,
When who should come sailing towards ‘im
But old Noah, steering ‘is Ark.
They stared at each other in silence,
‘Til Ark were alongside, all but,
Then Noah said: ‘What price yer Maple?’
Sam answered ‘Three ha’pence a foot.’
Noah said ‘Nay; I’ll make thee an offer,
The same as I did t’other day.
A penny a foot and a free ride.
Now, come on, lad, what does tha say?’
‘Three ha’pence a foot,’ came the answer.
So Noah ‘is sail ‘ad to hoist,
And sailed off again in a dudgeon,
While Sam stood determined, but moist.
Noah cruised around, flying ‘is pigeons,
‘Til fortieth day of the wet,
And on ‘is way back, passing Blackpool,
‘E saw old Sam standing there yet.
‘Is chin just stuck out of the water;
A comical figure ‘e cut,
Noah said: ‘Now what’s the price of yer Maple?’
Sam answered: ‘Three ha’pence a foot.’
Said Noah: ‘Ye’d best take my offer;
It’s last time I’ll be hereabout;
And if water comes half an inch higher,
I’ll happen get Maple for nowt.’
‘Three ha’pence a foot it’ll cost yer,
And as fer me,’ Sam said, ‘don’t fret.
The sky’s took a turn since this morning;
I think it’ll brighten up yet.’
-Marriott Edgar-
Who predicted that Holland will drown?
Was it Dr Hansen, the Scientist? Or James, the Activist?
Iwould rather bet on the Dutch protecting, or even extending their coastline, than any
forecast from Dr Hansen who should go and lie! in a darkened room.
There’s a good old story Alfred’s Ark by Jack Vance.
I wish Dr. Hansen would have read it in his troubled youth.
Extra money for the dykes has been reserved. Rivers are most important, but much has already been done since the floods of 1995 (kwarter million people evacuated for two weeks).
A metre is not going to threaten our country. Not even if it happens by 2100. Well, except for some problems with the rivers.
Well done Steve. We need to shine a light on to these predictions and show them up to be the nonsense they are. Your article was very succinct. Historic Sea level information is as flawed as temperature information as I will show below.
We are being bamboozled by science which likes to have a nice graph to explain everything, unfortunately the real world is more complicated than that. Global sea levels are -like global temperatures-a nonsensical artefact dreamt up in a computer laboratory where satellite records are tacked on to manufactured and highly incomplete histroric records from selected tide gauges.. Modern Sea level rises- where happening- are not being seen in context as another of those regular cycles that stretch back much further than the satellite records or tide gauges into the depths of recorded time.
This is the latest IPCC assessment which confirms sea level calculations from 1993 are by satellite.(page 5 onwards)
Link1
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
The sea level calculations rely on an enormous number of variable factors including pressure, location, tides, warmth of oceans, structures, storms, wave heights, surges, stasis, location of the gauge/sensor, slope of the underlying strata etc. The accuracy of measurements is said to be 3cm (10 times the level of the alleged annual rise) but in reality is often vaguer than that because of the inherent difficulties of measuring. Observed real world sea levels generally simply do not show the rate of increase suggested by the IPCC (although this varies enormously from place to place for reasons cited above)
Link 2 The document below was written by many of our old friends including Phil Jones and Mike Hulme-page 19 gives the sea level data
http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/images/stories/trends_pdfs/Trends_section1&2.pdf
The information for historic sea levels was ‘extended’ from a paper by one of the scientists at Proudman
Link3
http://www.pol.ac.uk/ntslf/products.php
Link 4 This is reconstruction of sea level data from 1700 of three extremely incomplete Northern Hemisphere records from which IPCC extrapolate their figures, take them to be a global figure and splice them on to the satellite records
Link 5.
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/author_archive/jevrejeva_etal_1700/
These three are taken to represent global figures since 1700-much data missing and subsequently interpolated.
Amsterdam from 1700 (Van Veen 1945)
Liverpool since 1768 (Woodworth 1999)
Stockholm since 1774 (Ekman 1988)
It says there are differences even in the same ocean basin between tide gauges of up to plus or minus 6cm rendering their use for a global record to be irrelevant
Link 6
http://www.pol.ac.uk/psmsl/author_archive/jevrejeva_etal_1700/2008GL033611.pdf
pdf from 1700 link
6cm margin of erropr from tide gauges in same ocean basin
Both the following sites give a good description of the satellite process-which is being constantly refined but doesn’t get more extremely accurate as the inherent flaws in measuring capabilities can’t be fully resolved no matter how many satellite passes are made.
Link 7
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/15_1/15_1_jacobs_et_al.pdf
Link 8
http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/Issues/1999/dec/abs1635.html
The following sites deals with problems of satellite accuracy and data;
Link 9
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/193/2009/os-5-193-2009.html
Link 10
This with reliability
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=859
Link 11
;http://lightblueline.org/satellite-tracking-sea-levels-set-launch
The UK Environment Agency -where possible like to use physical tide gauges as well when developing flood defence schemes, which are both visually observed or can send data electronically. Best of all is gathering information from local people such as the Harbour master or those who work the fishing boats and who know what is really happening.
The following link leads to a graph produced by the Dutch Govt sea level organisation- and confirm sea levels are stable and are somewhat lower than during the MWP. (This won’t stop them reacting to the IPCC by raising sea defences)
Link 12
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=61
Link 13
We have much observational evidence of historic sea levels (p162 on-including a map in the following link)
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0Nucx3udvnoC&pg=PA156&lpg=PA156&dq=romans+in+iceland&source=bl&ots=5k8qGn7VK4&sig=s4aeHlT8Tivz8rVwcHFRVFZjDp0&hl=en&ei=38FJSr2pKpe7jAfu2rRi&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4
Ancient Greek explorer Pytheas travelled to Iceland and not only discovered the frozen seas lying one days journey beyond, but was the first to quantify the moons action as being responsible for tides, and took physical measurements of heights. Sea level heights are generally said to be lower today than back in the Roman warm period and Mwp.
Sea castles in the UK built in the 11th century are now 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
Sea levels AND temperatures were higher in the MWP and the Roman warm periods and presumably other extended warm periods (the period 1700 to 1740 is looking increasingly comparable to today).
The worlds leading sea level expert Professor Morner has called the IPCC figures ‘a lie.’ Google ‘The greatest lie ever told’
Morner says: “The mean eustatic rise in sea level for the period 1850-1930 was in the order of 1.0-1.1 mm/year,” but that “after 1930-40, this rise seems to have stopped (Pirazzoli et al., 1989; Morner, 1973,2000).” This stasis, in his words, “lasted, at least, up to the mid-60s.” Thereafter, “the record can be divided into three parts: (1) 1993-1996 with a clear trend of stability, (2) 1997-1998 with a high-amplitude rise and fall recording the ENSO event of these years and (3) 1998-2000 with an irregular record of no clear tendency.” Most important of all, in his words, “There is a total absence of any recent ‘acceleration in sea level rise’ as often claimed by IPCC and related groups.”
He concludes: “When we consider past records, recorded variability, causational processes involved and the last century’s data, our best estimate of possible future sea-level changes is +10 +/- 10cm in a century, or, maybe, even +5 +/- 15cm.” See also Morner (1995); INQUA (2000).”
I am inclined to agree with Professor Morner that sea level is not really doing very much generally (with exceptions either way in some places)
Link 19
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12we18.htm
The above link dissects the data and states that a rise by 2100 of 5cm is possible…. plus or minus 15cm!
Morner stresses (as I do) that observational data contradicts the theoretical interpolated and massaged data that is used by the IPCC.
John Daly also had a good handle on all this.
Link 20
http://www.john-daly.com/deadisle/index.htm
The sea level is not rising at the rate suggested-it has stumbled in recent years according to many local gauges (what is global sea level supposed to mean with a million kilometres of coastline?)
To reach a 1 metre increase by 2100 means an average of nearly 11mm a year (only 90 years remaining). There is simply no evidence to show this is happening.
I had intended to cover historic sea levels as a companion to my ‘arctic ice variation through the ages’ series.
We must stop looking at just a few years of data as ‘proof’ of rising levels , and instead view things in a historic context, whilst retaining a great deal of scepticism at the notion you can create a highly accurate global figure in the first place, or that tacking dubious satellite data on to even more dubious tide gauge data is any way to create a worthwhile measurement .
Tonyb
A small coastal nuclear power plant in Antarctica that pumps sea water up into the middle of the continent fixes this problem very nicely. After all, that’s where the melt will be coming from, so pump it back up there. Do I win £5?
Sad to see a supposedly respected scientist reduced to personal thought and poor conjecture, especially when such speculation is reproduced in a once-proud scientific magazine.
hubris squared?
Sea level changes could have a devastating impact on many people and therefore predictions of changes are of considerable importance. It would probably be a good thing, however, to find somebody with a better forecasting record than Dr Hansen. I nominate Paul the Octopus who correctly predicted the results of 8 games in a row in the World Cup, including Holland’s defeat in the final.
Any users of this blog who are unfamiliar with Paul’s amazing record (there are probably quite a few Americans who have not been following the World Cup) might like to read the brief article in the Guardian below.
Paul the ‘psychic’ octopus wins again in World Cup final
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/12/paul-psychic-octopus-wins-world-cup
Another advantage that Paul has over Dr. Hansen is that being an octopus he is probably more familiar with the sea!
“Almost inconceivable…”
I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means.
The AGW folks and their lobbyists are scared spitless of a turnover in the
House of Representatives from one party in the majority to the other. We’ll
be hearing a lot of worriesome pronouncements and predictions
between now and November. Right now, thanks to the economy, nobody
much cares.
Just imagine the scurrying on the part of some researchers/scientists if a Republican
controlled House of Representatives begins hearings on climate science, grants, and
research in 2011. Let’s see some testimony “under oath” without slow-pitch softball
questioners pitching to their peers and former team mates!
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
So far we’ve had ONE named hurricane of the up-to-eighteen NWS/NOAA has set
as their prediction for the current season. The air flow pattern persists in running
from north central Africa due west to the upper part of South America, rather than
the “normal” track from northern Africa to the Carribean. See:
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/comp/cmoll/cmoll.html
It’s been having an odd flow since January. If I can see it, why can’t the folks
who get paid to watch the weather?
Alex Cull refers to the land sinking due to post glacial rebound. The rebound is causing land to rise. He is confusing this with the “post glacial adjustment” incorporated into the 3.2 mm/year calculation of sea level rise. The actual rise is less, but the sea floor is falling slightly (.3 mm/year) in reaction to the rise of the land masses, so the depth of the water is also increasing. This is “adjusted,” producing a figure which is of no interest to ordinary people and which is no longer the level of the sea relative to land. It’s a Mannian trick conducted in broad daylight.
Hmm… please correct me if I am wrong but a 1 meter sea level rise requires 96,000 cubic miles of ice to melt over the same period. At more than 4 kilojoules per kilogram where is all this energy to come from? Is he predicting the sun going nova?
I forgot to close the italics command with after the word “lot” in the
first paragraph. Rats !
“The Somerset levels in the UK are already experiancing problems.”
Well they would be. At the time of Alfred the Great the whole area was under water during the winter with only a few islands poking up above the waves. These areas were below peak sea level and drained for agricultural purposes. This drainage started in early medieval times. After drainage, the land sinks, ironically making the drained land even more prone to regular flooding. The worst flooding of the area in history took place in the 1600s when 2000 people drowned. The Levels are right next to the Severn estuary which has the second highest tidal range of anywhere in the world. They flood, have always flooded and always will flood. Nowadays a lot of the flooding is deliberate, as it encourages the development of wetlands on which wildlife can thrive, particularly wading birds and rare plants. Fascinating place, beatiful countryside, but a poor indicator of climate change.
It was indeed a brutal game & Holland were lucky to finish with the numbers they did! My daughter’s boyfriend is half-Dutch so I was supporting the men in Orange, regretably.
Now, remind me. Al Gore spent $4M on sea-front property in California because………..? Someone’s been telling porkies me thinks!
we will have to build more de sal plants so we can drink more sea water, this action will lower the sea level very quickly .do you think I can get a grant for this project
Roy says: July 12, 2010 at 3:19 am
“Another advantage that Paul has over Dr. Hansen is that being an octopus he is …
Not as slimy.
I’ll sell any Dutch citizen an insurance policy reimbursing them for any loss. 100 Euro’s per month. Can be inherited under special conditions.
Yes and the chairman of IBM once said that he could envisage a world which might contain no less that 6 computers!
He was right of course!
From my own observations, another piece of “anecdotal” evidence. Sea level at Cowes IOW has risen at a rate in the range ~0-1mm/yr over the last 25 yrs. There is an old paved path round the base of Cowes Castle which just floods on the highest tides, if the wind is in the right direction, so it is highly sensitive to any change in level. I have walked it thousands of times over that period. Flooding frequency may be a little higher than it used to be, but the level cannot have gone up by more than an inch, or there would be occasions when it was flooded to a depth in excess of an inch. Two inches since just 1994 is impossible.
Britain is said to be dipping slightly in the east, rising in the west, but the Isle of Wight is near the axis of tilt, so this should not be a significant contributory factor.
Sea level has risen 100 meters in the last 15,000 years. That works out to 6.6 millimeters per year.
So how exactly is the current 3.2 mm/year not natural?
My house is 2 meters below Sealevel. Next year it will be 2.03 M. Don’t think that is gonna be a problem as long as we keep building stronger dikes and maintaine our dunes. Another problem is the pumping away of water from the ground below us.
You know, that view of Holland may happen sooner than Hansen’s entrails foretell. The EU’s ecotards ordered the Dutch to flood productive farmland families had owned for hundreds of years since they rescued it from the sea.
Yes, the bureaucrats will save the planet.
It may be too much of a project to undertake worldwide, but I’d be interested in knowing what has happened to the prices of oceanfront property in the US? Is
Martha’s Vineyard now declasse? Are the Kennedy’s quietly selling off? What about
the Florida Keys?
I would be interested in knowing how much this hysteria is affecting the pocketbooks
of Mr. and Mrs. Rich America and the extent to which they are panicked or waiting it all out, ho-hum and (outside the downside in property, in general) oceanfront estates cannot be picked up at pennies on the dollar. ….Lady in Red
Why does he find reality “inconceivable”?
Land is rising – well at least where I live … I have my summer house in an area with the highest rate of land rising on the Scandinavian penisula. The released pressure from the ice during the last ice age result in yearly land rise of 5-7 mm.
I patiently waiting for mr Hansens profecy to be reallity so I my property again will be at the seaside. If we can stop aprox at 2,5 m then we are back on the level of 1742 and I could build my self a boat house and watch the sea from my living room. 🙂
How to turn a 10cm sea level rise into 5 metres:
“As an example, let us say that ice sheet melting adds 1 centimetre to sea level for
the decade 2005 to 2015, and that this doubles each decade until the West Antarctic ice sheet is largely depleted. This would yield a rise in sea level of more than 5 metres by 2095.”
Similarly, let’s say that the planet warms by 0.1 degrees from 2005 to 2015. If this doubles each decade, temperatures will rise 51.1 degrees by 2095, and over 100 degrees by 2105.
When exponential trends are the only way for these scary scenarios to work, i smell a rat.
tallbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 2:26 am
“I’ll tell you an old-fashioned story
That Grandfather used to relate,
Of a joiner and building contractor;
‘Is name, it were Sam Oglethwaite…..
He he…:-))
Love the odd ode TB!
Here’s the start of The Lion and Albert, which also has a watery comment…
There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That’s noted for fresh air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.
A grand little lad was young Albert,
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
With a stick with an ‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle,
The finest that Woolworth’s could sell.
They didn’t think much to the Ocean:
The waves, they were fiddlin’ and small,
There was no wrecks and nobody drownded,
Fact, nothing to laugh at at all….
Full text of this Marriott Edgar ode here…
http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/7686-Marriott-Edgar-The-Lion-and-Albert
Enjoy!
Rob Spooner: Alex Cull refers to the land sinking due to post glacial rebound. The rebound is causing land to rise. He is confusing this with the “post glacial adjustment”…
Yes, I think I was using an obsolete term for this. You’re right, the rebound is causing land to rise, but my understanding (such as it is) of the received wisdom is that while Scotland and the north west is rising, the south east of England is very slowly sinking, a bit like what happens when a heavy person gets off one end of a seesaw (but not quite as abrupt!).
It’s probably one of those pieces of information that has been told to us many times, but which could do with a bit of verification. At any rate, we are talking about processes that take millennia to unfold and are lost in the noise of short-term changes.
He’s drowned out the medieval cinque ports. Trouble is, since then they’ve all been stranded inland rather than drowned. The old cliff line’s just 1/2 mile down my hill. Great view for my grandkid’s if it comes back! Trouble is, unlike Hanson, I’m betting ‘$1000 to a doughnut’ that it’ll be even further inland.
The 1953 flood was a sea level rise of 2m + 4.9 m waves. That 2000mm + 5000 mm on top.
Looks like Jacksonville, FL is toast as well but the Lake Mary area, where I plan to retire is going to have ocean front property. Woot! Now, if we can only get those longevity genes isolated and activated.
“There is strong evidence that the Earth now is within 1 °C of its highest temperature in the past million years. Oxygen isotopes in the deep-ocean fossil plankton known as foraminifera reveal that the Earth was last 2 °C to 3 °C warmer around 3 million years ago, with carbon dioxide levels of perhaps 350 to 450 parts per million.”
What Jimmy “Death Trains” Hansen conveniently leaves out is the fact that we are in an interglacial period, the Holocene, which began 11,500 years ago. The warming from ice age conditions to near-present conditions, a jump of over 5C took less than a century, half of it occurring in as little as 15 years. C02 levels, as usual, began to rise in response to the warming. With his statement that we “were 2C to 3C warmer 3 million years ago, with carbon dioxide levels of perhaps 350 – 450 parts per million” he uses the old Warmists’ trick of implying that correlation = causation. He is of course, simply being dishonest. What else is new.
Jimmy clearly needs a vacation, preferably a good, long one.
If he keeps this up, I find it inconceivable that he won’t end up in a padded cell somewhere before the decade is out.
Going off on a tangent somewhat, an interesting picture of the extent to which the earth’s spin affects sea level :
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/what-would-earth-look-if-it-stopped-spinning
The only sea level that is catastrophically rising is the sea level of skepticism, as fig leaves of CAGW fall off.
In my lifetime the sea has risen 4″.
Wow.
I live in East Anglia, about 15 miles from the coast, my garden is full of pebbles and the soil is a sandy loam. I’m not a geologist but my best guess is that somewhere in the past my garden and house were in the sea, and it was only by a monumental effort of mankind in reducing CO2 emissions that the sea receded and some time later Italian prisoners of war (true!) were able to build my current house on the site the sea had once occupied.
The man is as nutty as a fruitcake.
I bought property in the middle of the English Channel so my Grand Kids can build a hotel when the sea level falls. The Florida Keys are a problem because all the people on Cuba will be walking to Florida one day!
If One can claim rising sea levels are possible then they need to realize the opposite is also possible based on historic evidence. We are currently about the mid range of long term sea levels. 800K years! 38 Million years of history shows that we are on the low side of sea level and the long term trend is falling.
We should be aware that J. a.k.a.”death trains”Hansen as far as 1986 began singing the Global Warming Mantra; so, careful researchers (or rather investigators), interested in knowing the actual origins of this scam must dig into the whole story about it.
It would be interesting to know how such a series of events developed afterwards (as for example the “trick”of convenient adjustments made on satellites measurements in 1989 and so on).
http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/vwpsw/360796B06E48EA0485257601005982A1#video
Second step is to teach their strikers how to kick the ball somewhere besides straight to the goalkeeper.
Third step is to teach the referees how to see their star player being pulled from behind as he is trying to kick a goal.
Alex Cull
“a bit like what happens when a heavy person gets off one end of a seesaw ”
That’s a wicked good analogy. Mikey likes it!
There was no map showing what would happen to Al Gore’s mansion in Montecito.
@Geronimo
I live in East Anglia too. Have you visited the sea-cliff at Dersingham Bog (near the village of Wolferton)? The interesting thing about the cliff is that the sea is a good 2 miles away on the horizon. The sea receded after the end of the last ice age (presumably because post-glacial bounce). So at the end of the century we might be back to where we used to be anyway.
Alan The Brit has it nailed. Its another attempt at driving down property values before Hansen makes his off to purchase.n Scaremongering generates billions $$$ on shorts. Why no one went looking at the money being made on climate scare tactics thus far astounds me. The SEC will do it for almost any other type of market manipulation so why not this one?
A history of wrong predictions. I was once an athlete but no longer. Perhaps Hansen was once a PhD …….
Is this prediction about sea level rises any more credible than his predictions about sea level impacts on Manhattan for the current period?
stumpy says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:15 am
Whilst Hansen is OTT as usual, it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years. The Somerset levels in the UK are already experiancing problems. People will have to adapt, the question is when, now or in 200 years?””‘
You would think that people would be smart enough to just take one step back from the beach….
….in 100 years
I’ve lived on this same rock, in the middle of this same ocean, for over fifty years. As I get older it’s getting harder and harder to climb in and out of the boat at the dock.
I swear, sea levels are falling, not rising.
When should we sceptics declare victory
As the aim of us sceptics is simply to have the predictions of climate based on real provable science, and as the “global warming scamsters” have been so humiliated over recent months. I would like to ask a general question: “what would we sceptics constitute as signifying victory?”
After all there are going to be people like Hansen, Mann and Corporal Jones who will believe in Manmade warming if the the glaciers started sweeping past their ivory towers. There will always by politicians like Gore out to make a quick buck and eco-groups will only give up on the global warming scare when there’s a better scare to scare us with. So, we are never going to convince everyone that climate science should be a testable, provable, impartial/apolitical science like every other (good) science.
So what constitutes victory? We are not trying to prove that mankind has not made some impact on global temperatures. Nor are we saying that a rise in temperature may not impact us humans.
What we are saying is that: we cannot tolerate people who try to hide the failings of the manmade global warming hypothesis; we cannot tolerate people who ignore the obvious problems of Urban heating or worse try to say they do not exist, also we cannot tolerate those who assume warming must be detrimental because “everything done by mankind to the environment must be detrimental”.
So what does victory look like? It surely can’t mean silencing idiots like Mann and Hansen, because our strength is that we welcome criticism of what we say because free speach and open discussion with honest criticism strengthens our case; it does not diminish good science!
And on the political front, there will always be people on the left, and capitalists wind-developers on the right, and liberal grant-hungry people in the middle who see global warming as a god given opportunity to push their own kind of politics on the rest of us. We’ll never stop these people!
So what does victory look like?
Is it when the science community themselves are so ready and able to criticise the theories of their peers that people like us are no longer needed?
Is it when governments finally realise further legislation is unnecessary – or is it when they roll back what they have done?
Is it when people like the CRU admit the failings of the global temperature monitoring network? And put in a decent system that gets around the problems of urban heating etc.?
Is it when the media throw the PR from Hansen in the bin as a “non story”?
Is it when the majority of people think we have “done enough” on global warming?
What is it?
Armed with this information, people have 100 years to stop living below sea level. Do you think they’ll start packing their bags now or wait until the water is on the first floor?
fFreddy says:
July 12, 2010 at 5:17 am
Going off on a tangent somewhat, an interesting picture of the extent to which the earth’s spin affects sea level :
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/what-would-earth-look-if-it-stopped-spinning
—————-Reply
I seriously doubt there would be much redistribution of the oceans if the earth stopped spinning. Currently the earth is an oblate spheroid, and (if memory serves me correctly) is about 23 miles larger through an equatorial diameter than a polar diameter because like surface water, the plastic earth is made oblate by the daily spin. Adjustments for the lack of such centrifugal force on the water would also have to be applied to the earth itself, giving what I believe would be approximately the current earth’s distribution of oceans.
stumpy says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:15 am
Whilst Hansen is OTT as usual, it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years. The Somerset levels in the UK are already experiancing problems. People will have to adapt, the question is when, now or in 200 years?
___________________________________________________________
Yes, but the trillion dollar question is when will we experience the next “little ice age” or worse the big one.
Most scientists agree we are near the end of the Holocene. A warm and wet climate people can deal with even if there is flooding. Cold or very cold and dry is the real killer and no one is paying that problem any attention. Some AGW papers even suggest Man’s CO2 emissions are keeping the climate from transitioning into a glacial age. According to Joe Bastardi we have two out of the three game changers in place right now. A quiet sun, and a change in the thirty year ocean oscillations to the cool cycle. All we are missing is a major volcano to cause a “year without a summer” so I suggest watching the bottom white spot of the Icelandic volcanoes/glacier and the Alaskan and Russian Volcanoes
What the scientist have to say about a little ice age.
FROM NASA:
“The researchers found some clear links between the sun’s activity and climate variations. The Nile water levels and aurora records had two somewhat regularly occurring variations in common – one with a period of about 88 years and the second with a period of about 200 years.” http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1319
Shahinaz M. Yousef of Department of Astronomy, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, forecast, in 1995 and 1996, that cycles 23 and the following two to three solar cycles are expected to be weak cycles similar to those cycles that occurred around 1800 and 1900. Implications of Gleissberg cycle
The big one
“..Professor Paar, from Croatia’s Zagreb University, has spent decades analysing previous ice ages in Europe and what caused them…”Previous ice ages lasted about 70,000 years. That’s a fact and the new ice age can’t be avoided….”This could happen in five, 10, 50 or 100 years, or even later. We can’t predict it precisely, but it will come,” he added…And he added: “The reality is that mankind needs to start preparing for the ice age. We are at the end of the global warming period. The ice age is to follow. The global warming period should have ended a few thousands of years ago, we should have already been in the ice age. Therefore we do not know precisely when it could start – but soon.” http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/General_News/2010-02-10/8836/Croat_scientist_warns_ice_age_could_start_in_five_years
Dansgaard (Greenland Ice core team) noted three rapid climate collapses are linked to orbital features that diminished the radiance from the sun… Climate Crash
Abrupt and sudden climatic transitions and fluctuations: a review: …A number of persistent oscillations exist, particularly one about 1500 years, but their amplitudes vary considerably between time periods. The Holocene appears to be no more climatically benign than the similar period in the Eemian. The importance of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation for generating abrupt climatic changes in Europe, particularly in association with sudden pulses of fresh water, is illustrated. The concept of antiphase temperature changes between the North and South Atlantic is discussed. Externally generated abrupt climatic deteriorations owing to explosive volcanic eruptions and variations in solar irradiance are also discussed…” 2001 Royal Meteorological Society
Milankovitch cycles:
“A census of Plio–Pleistocene (5–0 Ma) terrestrial palynomorph assemblages from ODP Site 1123, located 1100 km offshore eastern New Zealand and in a water depth of 290 m, reveals marked variations in warm- (Cyathea, tall tree Podocarpus/Prumnopitys, Dacrydium cupressinum) and cold- (Halocarpus, Phyllocladus, Nothofagus fusca type, Coprosma) climate indicator species at Milankovitch-scale periodicities. Time series analysis indicates that the vegetation record is covariant with marine climate proxies carbonate content) and is strongly coherent at the 40-ka and 100-ka orbital frequency.
click
Milankovitch cycles from an CAGW perspective: http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/studentresearch/climate_projects_04/glacial_cycles/web/index.html“>the Milankovitch Cycles
“… Because the intensities of the 397 ka BP and present insolation minima are very similar, we conclude that under natural boundary conditions the present insolation minimum holds the potential to terminate the Holocene interglacial. Our findings support the Ruddiman hypothesis [Ruddiman, W., 2003. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era began thousands of years ago. Climate Change 61, 261–293], which proposes that early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started.”
Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception
Given the 1974 CIA Ice Age document one wonders if we are being diverted towards “global warming” on purpose by those who know a glacial age is coming and want to insure the “elite few” survive it in style. Remember the seed vault?
Would some please buy Hansen some Prozac? The guy(and the rest of the AGW crowd) have some serious anxiety/depression problems. If pharmaceuticals aren’t the answer can we have an intervention with a capable therapist?
Amino: “Third step is to teach the referees how to see their star player being pulled from behind as he is trying to kick a goal.”
Difficult call for the ref, star player was outside the area, the pull failed to impede him and he finished up one-on-one with the goalie. Had referee blown, Holland, who should have been down to nine men by that time anyway, would have got a free kick on the edge of the area and Puyot sent off, if they failed to score we would now have everyone asking why the ref allowed play to go on. And I’m a fan of Holland, or at least Dutch football!
Sorry “…if they failed to score we would now have everyone asking why the ref allowed play to go on.”
Should read:”…if they failed to score we would now have everyone asking why the ref HADN’T allowed play to go on.
Dave N
“It could sound even scarier by expressing in µm”
A well used tactic with CO2 – 385 ppm sounds far worse than 0.038%, although personally I prefer ‘one molecule in every 2600’.
Tallbloke – thank you for the reminder of “Three ha’pence a foot”. My dad had that on a 78 rpm record and I knew it by heart when I was small, even though I had no idea what Bird’s Eye Maple was! A ha’pence was a half penny, for those too young to remember, and a foot was about 30cm.. 🙂
Schiphol Airport is currently 4m below sea level. So by 2107 it will be 5m below sea level!
Well, that’s definitely worse than now.
James P says:
July 12, 2010 at 8:15 am
A well used tactic with CO2 – 385 ppm sounds far worse than 0.038%, although personally I prefer ‘one molecule in every 2600′.”””
James you forgot the untimate in scare tactics, billions of tonnes
Gail Combs says:
July 12, 2010 at 7:43 am
We could argue with thousands of scientific papers (as the one below) and reasons, but, as we all know, this is not about science, data, proper or not properly placed weather stations or whatever, this is, specially in J.H. a.k.a “trains” case, is craziness taken to the limit. (it was politics up to november 2009, up to Climategate, from then on it is just a crazy “moment of inertia” to keep getting some money)
Solar Forcing of the Stream Flow of a Continental Scale South American River
http://www.iafe.uba.ar/httpdocs/reprint_parana.pdf
change that “n” to an “l”, ultimate 😉
“Looks like East Anglia is doomed too. Is that a bad thing?”
By and large it won’t be a bad thing, though maybe Suffolk (where Gainsborough took his photographs) will be missed a bit. I lived in Essex for a while and it’s a simply awful place.
I wonder how much bed wetting causes water to run to the sea? Raising the sea level.
Surely they have trillion dollar schemes to protect us and the planet.
stumpy says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:15 am
Whilst Hansen is OTT as usual, it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years.
OTT… Over the top… is that the same as making stuff up? Terrifying the public with fanciful nightmares? Lying and profiting from the lies?
150mm… 6″ in 100 years! I started screaming in horror when I read that and I’ve yet to stop. (OK, that last sentence is OTT).
Dr. Hansen says :
“I find it almost inconceivable that “business as usual” climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.”
Whereas, I find it inconceivable that anyone takes Dr Hansen’s predictions seriously at all when he predicted 20 years ago that half of Manhattan would be submerged under seawater by now.
FYI, the sea-level at Manhattan has barely risen an inch in that time!
I think those kind of warmistas are using AGW as a displacement, focusing on AGW allows them to ignore other problems, which they can’t handle emotionally.
As a dutchman originating from the zeeland area and vacationing at the coast from my early youth i may probably share with you an observation . The beaches nowadays are larger and more robust than in my early youth . This may be caused by supplemental sand brought to the shoreline during the recent years , but this is not the complete real story as in the first years this sand was washed away rapidly and needed to be resupplied every year in order to keep the coastline away from the dunes . Nowadays by just looking at the sea the water is further away from the dunes than ever at high tide and the beaches are really very wide at low tide as they have hardly been ever before . In zeeland the inhabitants have always struggled with the sea , but their mission statement reads Luctor et emergo and no matter what mr hansen is preaching this will always be the case .
Henry chance says:
July 12, 2010 at 8:46 am
Do you mean BIG DIAPERS INDUSTRY is behind GW?
I don’t care if Holland drowns … as long as the rest of The Netherlands stays dry.
In addition to the sea rising, the former swampland has been shrinking because they ‘layed it dry’ and the Scandinavia icemelt causes the continent to tilt pushing the country down. But we Dutch have been dealing with that since since the year 1200 (founding of Amsterdam) and even before that people lived there. We’ll manage just fine, so please keep your Hansen. 🙂
It’s deja vu all over again to see Holland and East Anglia in the same paragraph when the subject is sea level..
Like many of the posters here, I spent an interesting few years in the fens of East Anglia; at Feltwell. Since I never missed my shout at the local and evinced some interest in the peculiar lay of the land, where the river bottoms are higher than the surrounding terrain, the facts of the draining of the fens were explained to me by both the learned and the unwashed and the roles of the royals and the revolutionaries made clear. Tours were undertaken and ditches, dikes, gates, pumps and washes were examined and explained.
Quite a history, from the initial efforts of Vermuyden at the behest of Charles I (or the Earl of Bedford, depending on your historian), through the reign of William III (of Orange) and Mary , the construction of thousands of pump windmills, the conversion to steam, then electricity, then the floods of the mid 1950’s and the uneasy truce with nature which existed in the 1970s.
Now, the bright lights in charge of ol’ Blighty talk of abandoning coastal land because of a projected sea level rise of indeterminate height. Natural forces will have their way with the coastlines, but Vermuyden would probably say that using today’s windmills, useless on the grid, to defend selected areas by pumping water is a viable way to keep up the fight against the sea.
I’m always surprised by the logic of rising sea level being a problem for the Netherlands. A significant portion of the Netherlands is already below sea level, yet we’re not flooded. Apparently we can deal with being below sea level very well, and have done so for centuries. We do dykes (maybe no pun intended).
A few years ago I heard a report that the Netherlands can cope with 6 meters of sea level rise without spending more money annually on the dykes (for clarification: the ones standing at the coast) than we do today. It’s already a major investment, because, hey, we’re below sea level.
Added to that, sedimentological processes would naturally raise the beaches as the sea level rises, meaning that we could cope with 0.5 meter sea level rise in a century without even doing anything. (As an example, parts of the inland county Drenthe lie lower than the coastal province Groningen.)
The Netherlands is going to be the last coastal country on Earth which is going to have trouble with rising sea level.
It’s “The Netherlands”, not “Holland”. Holland is to the Netherlands, as England is to the UK.
I’ve been irritating people with that for the last few days.
A rise in sea level is measured against what? There is nothing at all on this planet which is fixed in any way. The land is rising and it is falling, it all depends on where you are observing from at the time. England has historical records of entire villages disappearing beneath the waves, there are also records of harbours used during the Roman occupation being found two MILES inland today!
http://www.culture24.org.uk/history+%2526+heritage/time/roman/art61315
Please tell me from which fixed point Mr. Hansen measures his “sea-level rise”.
The situation in FL is that FL is really, really short on “dirt” (average surface elevation across the state is about 6 feet above ocean level, and the land surface there it is very “flat”), all over the state, and the water table is very close to the land surface. What “dirt” there is is mostly ancient beach sand, whch is rounded and thus highly permeable. There is little, if any, clay in that sand. Subsurface drains (conduits) won’t function, so water runoff from paved surfaces can only be drained, slowly, by large area and shallow impound/seepage basins adjacent to the paved areas. For unpaved surfaces, precipitation simply seeps quickly into the sand. (I lived in Jacksonville for 6 years, 1998-2004, and I am a retired civil engineer, very experienced in highway engineering and drainage).
The freshwater in the water table is a relatively shallow layer over underlying salt ocean water.
So forget about constructing dikes or levees to protect against rising ocean levels, as was done in The Netherlands. Not at all feasible in Florida. If ocean level increase around Florida becomes significant, invest in suitcases.
James Evans says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:23 pm
It’s “The Netherlands”, not “Holland”. Holland is to the Netherlands, as England is to the UK.
Holland is only a small part of the Netherlands, the provences South- and North-Holland form the most of what in the 9th century was known as Holtland or Holdland, wich is old Dutch for Houtland or as it translates Woodland because back then it was mainly covered in forrests.
BTW: I live South-Holland very close to the “Maeslantsluys” kering, one of our engineering marvels wich is our answer to the doom and gloom predictions of the Warmistas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maeslantkering
BTW: Maeslantsluys is the old name of the town where i live 🙂
Ecotretas says: July 12, 2010 at 1:55 am
“It does seem that the image from Greenland, in the last page of the report, is photoshopped. Can someone confirm?”
Nope, those pretty deep blue melt lakes in Greenland are real,
Here are some photo’s I took myself on a fly-over in summer 2009 (scroll down):
http://www.vkblog.nl/bericht/268863/Over_Groenland
The guestimate of Hansen of 2007 is grossly outdated. Rahmstorf did a worst case estimate calculation for the Dutch government and his worst case estimate for 2100 was 1.3 meters. The (still pessimistic) best case extimate is between 40 and 80 cm.
http://www.vkblog.nl/bericht/219345/Alarmistische_zeespiegelstijging_van_de_deltacommissie
Messiah Complex: A mental condition where an individual believes himself to be the saviour of a group, time period, or in an extreme case, the world. .
Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
by James Hansen
He is convinced he is saving the grandkids. Better buy the buriel plot above the future flood plane!!!
Dr. Hansen says : “I find it almost inconceivable that ‘business as usual’ climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.”
But not to worry, the good doctor says: “Humans will adapt by growing gills and webbed feet. I know, because I saw it in a Kevin Kostner movie.”
Henry chance says:
July 12, 2010 at 2:08 pm
“Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity
by James Hansen
He is convinced he is saving the grandkids. Better buy the buriel plot above the future flood plane!!!”
He’s got a nice business model. Don’t know how many books he sells but he gets invited by a lot of lunatic European governments. Not bad for a guy whose prophecies always fail to materialize.
It is interesting that my parents and their ancestors had in reality more to suffer from flooding in the past (remember 1953 – and until 1927 in almost every winter season people were confronted with flooding disasters), the time before global warming.
It is incredible that all this nonsense about rising sea levels is ultimately attributable to one tidal gauge in Hong Kong Harbor sited on geology that is actually sinking! Based on this solitary gauge – much like the tree ring proxy data from that lonely pine cone bristle of the Yamal Penninsula used to create the Mann “FrankenGraph” Hockey Stick – the entire consensus of global warming rests. A table with one leg cannot stand for long.
Meanwhile, sea levels in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans are rising. I cannot wait for Steve McIntyre to analyze the world’s tidal gauge data and expose the fraud of “rising sea levels”.
Whilst Hansen is OTT as usual, it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years. The Somerset levels in the UK are already experiancing problems. People will have to adapt, the question is when, now or in 200 years?
A thousand years ago the area where East Anglia is now was a big salt marsh (fens) with islands. This is what kept William of Orange from capturing that area from the Anglish.
My ancestors are from the fenlands north of Cambridge.
http://www.depauwengaard.nl/Data/Foto/PIB/Kaart%20Holland.JPG
orange is Hollandt.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Koninkrijk_der_Nederlanden.png
This is The kingdom of the Netherlands.
Well which is more famous; Holland (Netherlands) or Atlantis ?
So pretty soon, Holland will be just as famous as Atlantis.
Atlantis was an earlier victim of MMGWCC. Must be true.
Think of all the great new fishing spots that will be formed whent he sea level rises; I can hardly wait.
When I was a kid, the sea level used to go up and down all the time; and the fishing was better when the sea level was up; cept for shellfish; and that was better when the sea level went down.
Gail Combs says:
July 12, 2010 at 7:43 am
We are now witnessing the Chinese buying uranium in excess of immediate requirements. In my view this is a deliberate smack in the face of the Cultists who would, in their debilitated mental state, have us believe that solar and wind work better in cold, calm, cloudy conditions. The Chinese know the next 2 or 3 decades are going to be bloody cold. As a large proportion of their massive population will require heating they see nuclear as one of the safest bets on national surviveability. Coal & nuclear, who would have thought.
Rational nations, those who reject Eco-cultism, will survive and thrive. Marxist- hippie trash led nations will suffer.
regards
I can imagine someone making a futuristic TV series about the travails of flooded-out residents of the British Isles after relocating to a special area set aside for them by the EU in newly ice-free Greenland. Of course, the title of the series would be “The British Reserve.”
tallbloke says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:23 am
stumpy says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:15 am (Edit)
it is a serious problem in the long term for many places, and we can expect 150mm of sea level rise in the next 100 years.
Oh Noes! SIX INCHES.
To the hills!
That may be 150 mm to us, but that’s 150,000 micrometers to the Hansen gang of climate thugs.
Maybe we ought to just dredge all the sand and silt out that’s been filling up the ocean for the last few thousand years…
Really. The notion that it’s only ice melt that matters is seriously broken.
The Indonesian tidal wave was from the sea floor rising 9 feet in one go on one side of the fault line. It’s a dynamic planet, get over it.
I notice that the gently sloping beaches in the UK at Southend, Weston-Super-Mare, Brean sands and elsewhere are still miles from the sea when the tide goes out. I presume that either the sea level rise claimed for the south of England is not as much as some have suggested, or that the river estuaries have merely dumped more sand in the sea to compensate. However, if the latter was the case, then all that sand would need to come from somewhere, and at a rate that would seriously undermine a belief that southern England could ever have existed at all. The only conclusion I can come to that makes sense is that the sea level is not rising at all. Where is the real proof that sea level in Southern England is rising? My guess would be that the tide gauges attached to stone dock walls have a tendency to sink into the mud due to the weight of the stone and concrete. Most of our long-term information on sea levels comes from old fashioned tide gauges that were used to indicate the depth of water in the dock for shipping purposes and never intended for monitoring climate change.
Get some old navigation maps from the British Museum library and lets test the theory that Britain is sinking under the waves by checking for the % of land that is actually being lost.
Holland is not going anywhere. Artificial land is easy:
http://www.thatsdubai.com/dubai-islands.html
Matter of fact, The island I live on in Florida was created artificially 50-years ago. There are around 2500 residences on the island – a marina, shopping center, etc.
Step 1) Build a seawall enclosed perimeter
Step 2) Dredge on outside of seawall, dump dredged sand, etc. inside seawall perimeter
Step 3) Put docks on outside of seawall
Step 4) Build Toll bridge to mainland
Step 3) Sell the new real estate and make a huge profit
It”s been happening forever…….
Stephen Skinner says:
July 12, 2010 at 8:40 am
“Schiphol Airport is currently 4m below sea level. So by 2107 it will be 5m below sea level!”
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Schiphol airport is 7 metres below sea level and increasing. (meaning more below)
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Hans Erren says:
July 12, 2010 at 2:03 pm
The guestimate of Hansen of 2007 is grossly outdated. Rahmstorf did a worst case estimate calculation for the Dutch government and his worst case estimate for 2100 was 1.3 meters.
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Even 1.3 metres is bad enough. The river delta’s will expand. Storm surges may well breach the increased dykes if the storm comes from the NW.
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Axel Sjöqvist says:
July 12, 2010 at 12:12 pm
“I’m always surprised by the logic of rising sea level being a problem for the Netherlands. A significant portion of the Netherlands is already below sea level, yet we’re not flooded. Apparently we can deal with being below sea level very well, and have done so for centuries.”
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Perhaps not today but did in 1953 and that was a combination of a king tide and NW storm.
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” A few years ago I heard a report that the Netherlands can cope with 6 meters of sea level rise without spending more money annually on the dykes (for clarification: the ones standing at the coast) than we do today. It’s already a major investment, because, hey, we’re below sea level.”
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Please find me the source of that “report”. I’ve spoken to Dutch engineers working on possible action that can be taken with different sea level rise scenarios. I’ll guarantee you that the Dutch most certainly cannot cope with a 6 metre rise. In fact, with a 2 metre rise, combined with the conditions of 1953, The Netherlands would flood again.
A 6 metre sea level rise would involve co-operation between The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, because The Netherlands would flood via the back door. A six metre sea level rise would mean an enormous river bank-up (the nation is a river delta) causing vast amounts of flooding behind the “enormous” dykes; perhaps we should call them dam walls. In order to raise the height of dykes, the base must be widened proportionally. They’d probably need all the above sea level soil of the remaining nation, to build the dykes. Now that would be diabolical!
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“The Netherlands is going to be the last coastal country on Earth which is going to have trouble with rising sea level.”
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Considering the increasing violent Atlantic storms with wind speeds approaching that of hurricanes, I think that The Netherlands will be one of the first ones to suffer.
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In general, to some of all comments, I am disappointed with the amount of ridicule and Ad Hominem attacks. I find it demeaning. I spent the first 18 years of my life in The Netherlands and the prospect of its possible demise is saddening. I question some of the graphs and calculations thereupon. Sea level rises will not be liniar at x-mm per year, we may be rudily surprised.
Have you ever heard the expression: “Lighten Up.” ?
Of course nobody wishes any ill will for the Netherlands; and a goo dmany of us believe they are in no immediate danger of any inundation; other than from natural variability causes.
Does Hansen have friends or relatives in Holland who are peddling future beach-front property tens of kilometers inland from the North Sea? I raise this frivolous idea only because the totally unexpected question can stop the prophets of doom. The question whether SIO plans to locate uphill from its present site (UC has a prescient RE group) is what made a certain famous AGW professor visibly blush in a public forum.
This story about Holland/The Netherlands disappearing in a hundred years comes from a man who apparently does not understand the basic principals of deltas, sedimentary processes or even elementary geology. Yet he is partially correct, for completely the wrong reasons. The only reason why Holland is likely to get flooded is that through more than a thousand years of engineering, the Delta has been constrained by dikes and thus controlled waterways.
Holland is sinking for a number of reasons. One is that Holland is on the opposite side of the post-glacial see-saw rebound (Scandinavia is coming up, Northern Germany&Holland is going down). Secondly, a major structural (low)/tectonic element, the Rhine Graben runs right through Holland. Hence major run-off (rivers) find the low spot and so, the Rhine ,Schelde and Maas, find their way to the Ocean through Holland.
As it is with deltas, rivers bring sediment and build land by dumping that sediment where the flow rates are reduced. This is a very dynamic process, where rivers and sea are in a constant battle for dominance. Deltas are areas where the rivers win and land is being added. With every spring flood new sediment is dumped on the flood plains, while sand and gravel is moved out to the shore line where beaches and dunes are formed in high energy processes (waves and winds). Sediments settle and compact over time, which is the third reason why Holland “sinks”. Sediments added by the rivers keep filling the low areas. All these processes have been going on for millions of years, and have little to do with climate variability (although climates play a minor role). Without building dikes, the delta would be an area constant under natural flood threats (river induced with occasional oceanic storm surges) because deltas are basically near sea level by virtue of they way they are formed. They tend to build out into the sea, not up to many tens or hundreds of meters. They remain flat and low and are located in low lying, generally sinking parts of the Earth’s Crust. Due to the constant sediment load brought by rivers, they remain at/near sea-level and build up to the highest possible flood level, so in general slightly above mean sea level. Every spring flood adds a few milli-meters and this keeps the delta as a land building phenomenon. Holland as a country has elected to control the spring floods with river dikes. This has significant advantages don’t get me wrong, but over a prolonged period of many hundreds of years, this will make the low lying areas sinking without the benefit of annual addition of thin layers of mud that could keep the land in balance with the sea. So… warnings about Holland eventually losing the battle need to be taken very seriously. Building bigger dams alone is not enough; where mother nature can not add sediment naturally, over time, geo-engineering has to step up and build up low floodplains. New developments are generally build on/with added sand, several meter thick, so some progress is being made. Funny enough is that might Holland eventually flood and conform the “2107 picture”, all manmade dikes are gone and the natural delta processes will be in full swing, thus completely contradict and counter the prediction. As long as the rivers bring sediment, the deltas always win. It is more predictable than who will win the World Cup.
On a side note: Bangladesh is a similar very successful delta, with the largest sediment supply in the world running off the Himalayas. As long as the rivers are not constrained, that delta will always be there, near sea level, prone to flooding, mainly by river run-off (not rising sea level), and growing. It still remains a very good idea when living in a delta to learn how to swim and have a boat.
BQuartero says:
July 13, 2010 at 8:22 pm
“Holland is sinking for a number of reasons. One is that Holland is on the opposite side of the post-glacial see-saw rebound (Scandinavia is coming up, Northern Germany&Holland is going down). Secondly, a major structural (low)/tectonic element, the Rhine Graben runs right through Holland. Hence major run-off (rivers) find the low spot and so, the Rhine ,Schelde and Maas, find their way to the Ocean through Holland.”
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If Holland is subject to post-glacial rebound (isostacy) the effect, coming out of the last glacial some 14,000 years ago, must be quite small indeed. By contrast, Greenland’s isostatic rise, because of melting, is now about 5cm/year and accellerating.
Holland is not sinking, only the western part directly behind the dunes, has been artificially lowered by peat bog mining starting at about 1500.
Can you give some figures as to how much Holland is sinking? I mean, Holland as a whole, not just the ancient peat bog areas. Feel free to give the figures in millimetres or microns. There’s no point in comparing post-glacial rebound with sea level rises when the time scales don’t match.
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“As long as the rivers are not constrained, that delta will always be there, near sea level, prone to flooding, mainly by river run-off (not rising sea level), and growing. It still remains a very good idea when living in a delta to learn how to swim and have a boat.”
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River run-off v sea level rises, cause and effect. If the sea level rises say 1 metre, the river level will rise by 1 metre, causing flooding.
George E. Smith says:
July 13, 2010 at 8:57 am
Have you ever heard the expression: “Lighten Up.” ?
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Judging from a number of comments, the notion of Holland flooding was treated as a joke. Some comments were demeaning, ignorant and unintelligent. I have a good sense of humour including the self-depricating version, but some comments were not even remotely funny. That has nothing to do with “lightening-up”.
The Dutch take sea level rises quite seriously and it doesn’t have to be 7 metres, one or two will be a headache.
The arrogance of mankind cannot be surpassed. “We must stop the ocean rise!” “We must make the Sahara Desert bloom like Edan once again!” “We must bring back dinosaurs, dodos, and every form of sea life that ever was!” “We must increase the orbit of Venus ever so slightly and Teraform that planet into another Earth to allow for the expansion of humanity’s zillions!” “We must … we must… we must… !!!!”
Humans haven’t changed a bit in the past million years. Oh, sure our toys become a little more complicated every so often; but the species is still as primitive as it ever was. There are the pragmatists, there are the dreamers, there are the worthless, there are the brilliant, there are the money grubbing thieves, there are the bleeding hearts, there are the old afraid of being forgotten, there are the young who only think of themselves; this list could go on for thousands of lines.
The Dutch are a wonderful people, Holland is a beautiful country — I’ve been there several times– I’ve also lived in Florida. Is the world going to change as we live and breath and watch? You bet it is! It always has! It always will! What’s the point of all the talk? Recognizing and learning the truth. Doing what we can and should.
Ref. Gore, Mann & Co. – We used to have some pretty good ways of dealing with these people, a million years ago; I guess –in this respect– we’ve taken a few steps backwards. Well, nobody’s perfect.
David,
if you are interested in isostatic rebound I am sure you will be able to do your own research, as you should, and don’t take my word for it. The estimates of positive (and negative) rebound run from about 0.5 to 1 cm/year. Maybe you can find some references as high as 2 cm/year. The estimates are based on dividing obvious uplifts and relative sinks from marker beds by the time/age difference of those marker beds. Then taking post glacial sea level rise into account. Wether the number is 0.5 or 2 cm/year does not really matter too much. The point is that it is the sediment supply that allows deltas to develop. Matching sea level rise to subsidence is missing the key element. But yes, Holland is sinking, and not by peat removal (which is not sinking, but human induced surface mining). But you are right, not every point is sinking and not at an equal rate. Brabant and Limburg are more under the influence of structural control. The Peel still shows active faulting due to tectonic activity in the Rhine graben. The rivers are where the subsidence leads them. The beauty of deltas is that they are in a dynamic balance with seal level. if sea level drops, the rivers bypass their previously formed delta and start forming a new lobe. rivers switch course and new sediment fills in an area under compaction. If sea level rises, the flood level rises, as you noted, and thus the accommodation space for new sediment deposition increases. As long as the sediment supply is sufficient, deltas build out and up (with and up to sea level, not much higher). Holland’s problem is not the sediment supply, but the fact that the rivers are diked-in and can no longer freely distribute their annual sediment load evenly, thus subsidence due to the formerly stated reasons takes over. The Bangladesh/Brahmaputra delta has been building for millions of years and has effectively kept up and thrived during one of the fastest sea level rises in geological history. It also has been flagged as an area that will drown (Gore’s movie). If there is any area that will never drown due to sea level rise, it is Bangladesh; as long as the Himalayas are there and the rivers are allowed their seasonal flooding. Get to know your deltas, how they are formed and what keeps them there. good luck.
David says:
July 13, 2010 at 7:40 am
“Schiphol airport is 7 metres below sea level and increasing. (meaning more below)”
According to aviation charts Schiphol is 11′ (just under 3.5 metres). Why exagerate and please can you show by measurment that Schiphol is sinking or sea level rising?
“By contrast, Greenland’s isostatic rise, because of melting, is now about 5cm/year and accellerating.”
I have to consider your last exageration in requesting to see the same information. By contrast to this in 1942 a squadron of 8 planes crash landed on the Greenland ice cap. The planes were located in the 1992 under 80 metres of ice!
If Greenland is losing ice where did the 80 metres of ice/snow come from?