From the hot and well above sea level University of Arizona, home of the world famous parking lot climate station, comes this zany press release:
Rising seas will affect major US coastal cities by 2100
Rising sea levels could threaten an average of 9 percent of the land within 180 U.S. coastal cities by 2100, according to new research led by University of Arizona scientists.
The Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts will be particularly hard hit. Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va. could lose more than 10 percent of their land area by 2100.
The research is the first analysis of vulnerability to sea-level rise that includes every U.S. coastal city in the lower 48 with a population of 50,000 or more.
The latest scientific projections indicate that by 2100, the sea level will rise about 1 meter — or even more. One meter is about 3 feet.
At the current rate of global warming, sea level is projected to continue rising after 2100 by as much as 1 meter per century.
“According to the most recent sea-level-rise science, that’s where we’re heading,” said lead researcher Jeremy L. Weiss, a senior research specialist in the UA’s department of geosciences. “Impacts from sea-level rise could be erosion, temporary flooding and permanent inundation.”
The coastal municipalities the team identified had 40.5 million people living in them, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. Twenty of those cities have more than 300,000 inhabitants.
Weiss and his colleagues examined how much land area from the 180 municipalities could be affected by 1 to 6 meters of sea-level rise.
“With the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions, the projections are that the global average temperature will be 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than present by 2100,” said Weiss, who is also a UA doctoral candidate in geosciences.
“That amount of warming will likely lock us into at least 4 to 6 meters of sea-level rise in subsequent centuries, because parts of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will slowly melt away like a block of ice on the sidewalk in the summertime.”
At 3 meters (almost 10 feet), on average more than 20 percent of land in those cities could be affected. Nine large cities, including Boston and New York, would have more than 10 percent of their current land area threatened. By 6 meters (about 20 feet), about one-third of the land area in U.S. coastal cities could be affected.
“Our work should help people plan with more certainty and to make decisions about what level of sea-level rise, and by implication, what level of global warming, is acceptable to their communities and neighbors,” said co-author Jonathan T. Overpeck, a UA professor of geosciences and of atmospheric sciences and co-director of UA’s Institute of the Environment.
Weiss, Overpeck and Ben Strauss of Climate Central in Princeton, N.J., will publish their paper, “Implications of Recent Sea Level Rise Science for Low-Elevation Areas in Coastal Cities of the Conterminous U.S.A.,” in Climatic Change Letters. The paper is scheduled to go online this week.
Weiss and Overpeck had previously developed maps of how increases in sea level could affect the U.S. coastline. Strauss suggested adding the boundaries of municipalities to focus on how rising seas would affect coastal towns and cities.
For the detailed maps needed for the new project, the researchers turned to the National Elevation Dataset produced by the U.S. Geological Survey. The NED provides a high-resolution digital database of elevations for the entire U.S.
The high resolution let Weiss and his colleagues identify the elevation of a piece of land as small as 30 meters (about 100 feet) on a side – about the size of an average house lot.
The researchers used the USGS database to create detailed digital maps of the U.S. coast that delineate what areas could be affected by 1 meter to 6 meters of sea-level rise. The researchers also added the boundaries for all municipalities with more than 50,000 people according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
To increase the accuracy of their maps, the team included all pieces of land that had a connection to the sea and excluded low-elevation areas that had no such connection. Rising seas do not just affect oceanfront property — water moves inland along channels, creeks, inlets and adjacent low-lying areas.
“Ours is the first national-scale data set that delineates these low-lying coastal areas for the entire lower 48 at this degree of spatial resolution,” Weiss said.
The NED data set has some uncertainty, particularly for estimating elevation changes of 1 meter or less. That means the researchers’ ability to identify the threat to any particular small piece of land is better for larger amounts of sea-level rise than for smaller amounts of sea-level rise, Weiss said.
“As better digital elevation models become available, we’ll be using those,” Weiss said. “The USGS is always improving the digital elevation models for the U.S.”
Overpeck said, “The main point of our work is to give people in our coastal towns and cities more information to work with as they decide how to deal with the growing problem of sea-level rise.”
Researcher contact information:
Jeremy Weiss
520-621-6144
Jonathan Overpeck
520-907-6480
Additional maps of the effects of sea-level rise — UA Department of Geosciences Environmental Studies Laboratory http://www.geo.arizona.edu/dgesl/
=========================================================
I’ve already debunked a similar story about sea level rise:
Freaking out about NYC sea level rise is easy to do when you don’t pay attention to history
But let’s do the exercise again.
OK current rate of sea level rise from UC’s website is:
Rate: 3.0 mm per year
2100-2011= 89 years
89 years * 3.0 mm/year = 267 mm
267 mm = 0.267 meter, or 10.51 inches, or .87 foot
1 meters – 0.267 meter = 0.73 meters short by 2100 at the current rate of sea level rise.
Let’s say the rate of sea level rise doubles:
we get 534 mm by 2100, still 0.46 meters short
Maybe the rate of sea level rise triples:
we get 801 mm by 2100, still 0.19 meters short
So far, there doesn’t seem to be any indication of accelerating sea level rise in the sea level data for the past 120 years. It seems rather linear, at 18.5 cm for the last 100 years.
The IPCC AR4 doesn’t seem to support 1 meter of sea level rise by 2100 either. While computer projections based on supposed temperature increases project out to 1 meter or more, the IPCC AR4 projections are much more conservative, at 20-60 centimeters.
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Too bad I’m not on Jeremy’s thesis committee. I would flunk him. On the other hand, if he told the truth, Prof. Overpeck would flunk him. These stories are self-perpetuating.
So, 1 meter by 2100? Ok, a prediction. Expressing the rise of 1 meter a century per decade, you get 10 centimeters per decade, or a centimeter a year. Since the rate is less than half (30%) of that, how do you derive causation?
Jonathan Overpeck eh? Say no more.
Weiss’s (et. al.) work appears to be simply a mapping exercise. Shock finding is that people like to live and create cities near the sea, and sometimes those locations are a low elevations relative to the sea.
Because of excessive water extraction, the city of Tokyo has subsided by 19 feet relative to sea level in the last 100 years. Where are the Japanese climate refugees?
“According to the most recent sea-level-rise science…”
say what ?
Oh yawn!
Just another unfounded climate scare story from academics seeking grant funding.
I never understand why people buy houses on river flood plains or in coastal areas likely to hit by flooding from storms/hurricanes. These people are responsible for their own stupidity; does no one understand the concept of ‘caveat emptor’ (buyer beware) any more?
So … IF the sea levels rise at a ridiculously increased rate AND everyone stands around watching silently there might be problems.
On the other hand Manhattan Island didn’t double in size just by itself…
The warmists don’t just treat the general public like mindless drones, they really seem to believe that we are.
Time to show a bit of non-drone initiative and boot these idiots out of our lives.
Between this morning and noon we’ll have a temp increase of 5°C.
Means 5K in 6 hours!
Do you all agree that if this trend continues during the next 100 years, it makes their projections meaningless?
Shouldn’t I draft a rebuttal based on my findings?
Science is so easy nowadays.
Is there any new climate science in this? As far as I can see all they are doing is drawing high resolution contour maps of certain coastal areas.
It would be nice to see further contours added to show where land has already disappeared over, say, the last 80 years so that we can see what has actually happened, and then compare it with the familiar forecasts of doom.
I have posted this before, but here goes again, because I still don’t buy this sea-level rise business.
These are the cliffs east of Antalya, Turkey. The Med is a good model for sea level monitoring, because it has no tides to confuse the issue.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antalya_undercut_lr.jpg
Note the size of the wave-scoured undercut. The sea level is normally exactly level with the lower platform – I had to wait ages for a low swell to pass and reveal the lower platform. There is only one undercut, none above or below.
For this undercut to form like this, with a very precise lower platform and single undercut, the sea level will have to have been very stable for some considerable time. For how long? Well this is an image of the calcite deposits that have formed on the cliff-face itself.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antalya_calcite_lr.jpg
Now I think a calcite deposit that thick will take a long time to form. Say 500 years?? In which case, these cliffs have been in their present state (not retreating) for at least 500 years. So the undercut is at least 500 years old. So therefore sea levels have not changed for 500 years.
The only wild card here is land movement. However, for sea levels to have really risen over the last centuries, then we must imagine a case where the land and sea have risen in precise unison – otherwise the undercut would be deformed. This is an unlikely state of affairs.
In summary, the evidence from the Med seems to show that sea levels have been steady for some considerable time.
.
Sydney Harbour will rise, Sydney Opera House will be surrounded by 10 metres of water!!
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/exhibitions/ecologic.php
Peter Miller:
Correct. If you buy on a floodplain, you should expect to get wet. What is annoying is those types who buy houses in idyllic locations next to babbling rivers. Brilliant in summer for boating and dabbling your feet. Not so fun in winter – and you should hear them moan about getting flooded. Think, people!
But, the present work seems to be telling prospective purchasers *not* to buy in low-lying areas near the sea. For the sceptic, this would seem a worthwhile gamble, especially if alarmism causes property prices to fall (not much chance of that, I’d say).
You don’t have to be low-lying to be affected by the sea of course. Over here in Norfolk (UK) houses are constantly falling into the sea. The local council recently made an agreement to buy a load of ‘at risk’ houses so the owners could leave and start again. I have no sympathy. Don’t buy houses near soft cliffs. Don’t expect the public purse to buy a new house for you further inland when the cliff edge gets close.
We had a local BBC news report on Friday about flooding and commented that since the floods of 1953, which inundated the east coast of England killing over 300 people, the sea levels have risen 1.5 meters. I complained about this alarmist figure saying that the correct figure should be 3mm per year for 58 years, 174mm, or just over 6 inches. This was in case the BBC had got metric and imperial mixed up. So far no apology to those in the at risk area and no explanation as to where these figures came from.
Ralph says:
February 15, 2011 at 1:08 am
Those pictures reminded me of the late great John Daly’s `Isle of the Dead’ benchmark in Tasmania.
http://www.john-daly.com/index.htm
Australia’s (would any other nation stomach him?) Kevin (“greatest moral challenge of our time”) Rudd, and Greg (“cuckoo carbon price “) Combet will be relieved that those sea rises will be a world away from their new beach-side digs.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/warmist_rudd_doesnt_fear_sea_level_rises_after_all/
I wonder if these predictions are doom are more likely to be for swing states like Florida?
Perhaps global warming will destroy Indiana corn crops?
Now I wonder who has peer reviewed the paper?
A 1 meter rise can easily be dealt with by using what we know as concrete as well as other measures such as stones and beach nourishment. Why is it that alarmists think human beings will simply sit and watch while the sea encroaches on their valuable real estate? We haven’t sat down and done nought in the past so why should we in the future?
http://www.geography-site.co.uk/pages/physical/coastal/defences.html
Well Australias environment minister Greg Combet has just bought a beachfront house in Newcastle. Says a lot about his faith in the sea level rise ideology hes turning into government policy.
I am sick and tired of hearing this sea level BS. If sea levels were rising remotely that fast it would be easy to detect. The test is simply to take the coastal maps made by the British navy over the last 200 years around the globe and simply compare sections of the maps between known landmarks on the coast. It would then be a simple matter to detect if any land at all had been lost to the sea over the last 50 years, and where. Simple, a child could do it (if he had time). Oh if only I had time – I would give them a paper that would debunk this nonsense. I’d start with Bangladesh – I reckon that sea-level nation could only have got bigger over the last half-century with the enormous amount of material brought down the Ganges delta.
Fact is these disengenuous scientists know full well that if they took this simple approach they would be forced to admit there had actually been no significant net loss in land over the last 50 years (just as simple photographs of the Maldives have shown they have got bigger over the last 50 years). By making overly complicated satellite measurements these climate scientists can dress up their results with their own brand of snake-oil, whilst claiming those that those that challenge them are fools that simply don’t understand the “complexity” of their new science.
That’s all these charlatans are – snake-oil salesmen, they play exactly the same tricks. They make me sick.
You’ve got to laugh at those model preojection curves. Have you noticed that the projections all admit that the last 50 years of sea level rise have been completely linear, but assume that non-linearity will occur TOMORROW!
Don’t you just get the strong feeling that the divergence from linear is something of a moveable feast for these model projections? It’s like one of those religions that predict the end of the world but find the need to keep postponing it every time they are proved wrong. But then we already knew that Team AGW were followers of a bizarre religious cult.
Ralph, nice picture and good observations. But you discount the future sea level rises caused by driving SUV’s and using airconditioning to keep warm/cold/alive. You have to be a greenie to understand these things. (sarc off)
Any press release that has to inform its readers that “One meter is about 3 feet” is clearly aiming at total numpties (to use a recently overused term).
Free swimming lessons for warmists. The rest of us will just get on with our lives.