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/
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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.
Another “Garbage In/Garbage Out” climate paper.
Further to the global compilation of sea level by U of Colorado, it is now 5 months behind on data that refresh about every 2 weeks. Do we need a Freedom of Information request? How much do taxpayers send to the University for such service? Is it just coincidence that the compilation is so late when the sea-surface temperature suggests the level has dropped?
Didn’t Hansen predict back in the 90’s that the west side of NYC would be underwater by now?
Anthony, how about an article (or series of articles) discussing alarmist predictions made in the 70’s, 80′ s, 90’s and if they were accurate or not?
First of all I am embarrassed for this Ph.D. candidate. To be forced to eat this gravy covered excrement in order to get more grants into his professor’s department must bash the soul.
However, on the up side of this gravy covered excrement is this:
Expansion of estuaries? And this is bad how? Plus we get a bonus: When the sea level goes back down again, we can re-plant this now enriched bottom land. I just don’t see a downside here. Nature has done this over and over again to our benefit. That some are saying WE are now forcing this entirely beneficial natural oscillation does not get me knickers in a twist.
These people should be arrested and never see the light of day again…
…that’s some of the most expensive real estate in the entire country
“Rising Seas Will Affect Major US Coastal Cities” by 2100
…..1……..2…….3……..4……….5……..6…….7……….8………9……10
You really do have to admire these people. They got 80% of it Right.
I got you. So what you do is “talk down” the value of beach-side property today using AGW theory and then in ten years time watch your property values rise as the doomsday scenario proves to be built on sand.
thanks, used some of this info for a college assignment
wish me luck!
Worry makes people open their wallet.
This interview is a MUST READ in any discussion on sea level rise. Dr Mörner discusses trends in the 20th century (1.1 mm/yr), Pacific Islands such as Tuvalu, and below I have excerpted his discussion of satellite data ‘corrections’ to otherwise flat trend data.
Interview: Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner
Claim That Sea Level Is Rising Is a Total Fraud
Tide gauging is very complicated, because it gives different answers for wherever you are in the world. But we have to rely on geology when we interpret it. So, for example, those people in the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], choose Hong Kong, which has six tide gauges, and they choose the record of one, which gives 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level. Every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It’s the compaction of sediment; it is the only record which you shouldn’t use.
Now, back to satellite altimetry, which shows the water, not just the coasts, but in the whole of the ocean. And you measure it by satellite. From 1992 to 2002, [the graph of the sea level] was a straight line, variability along a straight line, but absolutely no trend whatsoever
Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their [IPCC’s] publications, in their website, was a straight line—suddenly it changed, and showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 mm per year, the same as from the tide gauge.
It was the original one which they had suddenly twisted up, because they entered a “correction factor,” which they took from the [Hong Kong] tide gauge.
It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don’t say what really happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend!
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/NilsAxelMornerinterview.pdf
Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner is the head of the Paleogeophysics and
Geodynamics department at Stockholm University in Sweden.
He is past president (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission
on Sea Level Changes and Coastal Evolution, and
leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project. Dr. Mörner has
been studying the sea level and its effects on coastal areas for
some 35 years. He was interviewed by Gregory Murphy on
June 6 for EIR. [June 22, 2007]
Maybe the need to have these guys at AU take a few history classes.
A more clearly-defined accelerated phase of sea level rise occurred between 14,600 to 13,500 years before present (termed “meltwater pulse 1A” or “MWP-1A” by Fairbanks in 1989), when sea level increased by some 16 to 24 m
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/
So during a high melt ‘Pulse’ when glaciers were KM thick, we get 1.96 m/yr. And now we are to get half that?
>>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<<
We spend a year sailing in Tonga in the Pacific. The charts for that area were made by Bligh in the late 1700's. Yes, that Bligh.
And guess what. The charts are accurate. The areas marked as less than 1 fathom of water still have less than one fathom of water. In fact, the amazing thing is how accurate the charts are, given the equipment they had at the time.
Presumably, property values are now plummeting in Washington, NY, Tampa, Miami, et al. By 2100, Britain will be able to buy back the east coast of the USA for a knock-down price and the 13 States will be ours again!
Sad for the taxpayers of AZ who contribute towards this professor’s salary and department. A young mind of mush made mushier. Another thesis that should get tossed into the shredder bin of failed predictions.
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Very sad for those with a legitimate degree from UA. Alumni might think about pulling funding to the university’s foundation. Even sadder that his doctoral committee would pass any defense to such garbage.
You know perfectly well sea level rise is not expected to be linear and that the IPCC 4 estimates did not include (and could not have included) recent work on the rate of melting of the Greenland ice sheets and parts of the Antarctic ice sheets. If you want to criticize the science go ahead. But simply asserting that your linear projection has anything to do with the real science is just silly.
This is a Doctoral Candidates research???
You’ve got to be kidding me. This sounds more like a High School Science project to me. In fact, I was doing pretty much the same thing one weekend in about 2001, when my son was on a camping trip and I was board. All it took was finding the USGS elevation data set, a tool ( many OSS packages available) to convert to an elevation map, POVRay, and a little BASH to automate things. If this is an indication of the direction the direction our sciences are taking quality wise, we are doomed!
It sure looks like we are headed to the world depicted in Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle , and Michael Flynn’s book “Fallen Angles”!
I’m sure it’s been mentioned here before, but this just occurred to me:
Let’s assume that the sea level does, indeed, rise as predicted. As that occurs, the area covered by water will significantly increase, which means that it will take that much more water to achieve the next unit of rise. So as it continues, the rate of rise will have to slow down, not speed up.
For proof – dig a hole with sloped sides and fill it with equal measured amounts of water. Each identical amount you add will cause a smaller increase in the total depth. It’s just basic geometry.
1. What is the latin term for extrapolation to absurdity, the opposite of reductio ad absurdum?
2. The 3.0 mm/yr from 1994 is from satellite data. The hundred year 1.85 mm/yr is from 21 high-quality tidal stations (I suspect). Are we convinced that the sea-level proxy of satellite data is nailing the real-world of sea-level rise? One’s measurement, the other is math.
Hansen/Gore say the rise is accelerating, as the 3.0 mm/yr can be interpreted. Within the 16 year time frame, it may be, but is that just a partial cycle of the overall 60-year solar cycle?
Good, I hope it happens, and happens fast. Then, when the seas cannot get any higher, maybe these grant prostitutes will stop crying, but I doubt it.
Funny.
These University of AZ “scientists” did not show any decrease in the land area for such critical cities as Buffalo NY, Cleveland OH, Chicago IL, Michigan, Toronto, Montreal, ….
Didn’t they include a factor for the sudden melting of those 5000 ft high glaciers covering Montana and North Dakota? (After all, it’s happened before due to global warming!)
/sarchasm – That gaping whole between an enviro and the truth.
It’s just as likely sea levels will have declined by a meter in the 2100 due to the sun entering a quiet period in its longer cyclic activity reducing the magnetic shield which deflects galactic cosmic rays. More GCRs increase aerosol particles which increase the number of cloud-forming condensation nuclei which in turn produce more low level clouds which in turn raises global albedo which in turn causes global cooling which in turn builds up ice caps and glaciers which in turn lowers sea level.
Sounds like a good null hypothesis to me.
The truth of the matter is whatever happens won’t be known until it does happen and until we know what happens we don’t know how to deal with. Making the wrong call now and taking actions based upon that call will only make the problem worse if the call is wrong and waste valuable resources in the here and now which would be better spent fixing more immediate and certain concerns like energy production, fresh water supplies, phosphorus suppy for fertilizers, real pollution fouling up rivers lakes and oceans, global famine and disease… the list of real immediate problems goes on and on.
AusieDan
February 15, 2011 at 3:23 am
There has to be some deep intelligence here somewhere.
These fairy stories start up and spread round the world very fast.
Is somebody or some organization master minding them, I wonder.
Or are they just playing copycat, one from another?
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The fuzzy answer is 0.5. That is yes and no. It does not take a conspiracy to create conspiracy like results. There are groups that plan tactics to push their agenda which includes messaging. This is used to create talking points, and research goals, all wrapped up in the concepts of “Social Relevancy”. Students are indoctrinated in the importance of “Socially Relevant” research. The messaging gets defined, the memo goes out, the funding gets allocated, the prof reveals the important issues (this week), suggests areas of study with some examples, and the brainwashed students take the bait thinking they are walking in the tradition of the great men of science for the benefit of man. Add to this the positive feed back provided by a filtering news media. And the result … A conspiracy with out any conspirators. I call it a pseudo-conspiracy.
What I’m about to ask has no basis in science at all but didn’t AlGore just purchase a multi-million dollar, 6br,, 5 bath, w/pool, mansion on a prime parcel of ocean front property in CA.?
I wonder what he knows that he isn’t telling?