Note:John Droz asked me for help with research yesterday, and while I have no time at the moment, I did suggest he contact Bob Tisdale, and this is the result. In an effort to get him some help, I present this on WUWT – Anthony
Guest Post by John Droz, Jr.
Friends:
I am asking for help from oceanographers and/or others who have experience with sea level measurements.
I am a physicist (energy expert) who has been involved with several environmental issues over the last thirty years.
I am a traditional scientist in that I am a strong advocate of subjecting hypothesis for solutions to our environmental issues to the Scientific Method. In other words, I would expect that proposed solutions have a comprehensive, independent, transparent and empirical based assessment. (Unfortunately, this now seems to be the minority view among scientists.)
I have written extensively on energy issues, and have given free presentations in some ten states. This is online at EnergyPresentation.Info. There are also several slides about AGW.
Anyway, the case at hand is that I was recently asked by my local representatives for some scientific assistance.
The brief story is that North Carolina is attempting to be the first state in the nation to impose rather comprehensive and consequential (i.e. expensive) rules and regulations on its coastal communities. This is based on projected substantially increased sea levels, due to the assumed effects of AGW.
But it’s worse than that. The basis for these changes is a 2010 NC Sea Level Assessment Report (http://dcm2.enr.state.nc.us/slr/NC%20Sea-Level%20Rise%20Assessment%20Report%202010%20-%20CRC%20Science%20Panel.pdf).
I have been told that the US federal government funded this study. The stated intention was that they would like that this study be used by the rest of the coastal states (plus the federal government) as a basis for new rules and regulations. If this came about as planned, there would clearly be worldwide implications to this simple report.
As such, it is my view, that it is imperative to get it right.
In my reading of the report, the key assumptions are that:
1 – the IPCC sea level rise projections (15± inches by 2100) are the minimum expected, and
2 – that Rahmstorf (rahmstorf_science_2007, is a credible source to use as a high end (55± inches by 2100).
To give the appearance of being reasonable, the report authors (13 esteemed scientists) selected a value near the middle of these numbers: 39± inches by 2100.
Figure 2 (page 11 of the NC sea level report) and the accompanying text in the report shows and explains this.
This is not my area of expertise, so I can not make a technical critique of Rahmstorf’s work, or the referenced Church & White (2006) report. If anyone can provide some scientific evidence, pro or con, regarding these documents, it would be greatly appreciated.
Again, what happens about this in NC will likely be a precursor to other coastal states (and countries), so this is an international big deal.
Feel free to email me directly at “aaprjohn [ at ] northnet dot org”.
THANK YOU!
john droz, jr.
physicist & environmental advocate
Morehead City, NC
Also, in Broome again, high tide also reaches the edge of the runway at Broome International Airport, and a few metres from the new BOM building with weather recording equipment including radar tower, and if the level had got any higher over the last 40 years, the runway would have become unusable.
With BOM’s new building so close to high water, they now seem to have confidence in sea level not rising, at least here in Broome.
Here’s a link to the NOAA sea level trends web page: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.shtml
It shows Beaufort at 2.57mm/yr from 1953 to 2006 with a 95% confidence of +/-0.44 mm.
No reason to believe the trend won’t continue up in a linear manner. If so, by 2100 SL would rise by 9″. How can 39″ be considered credible? I’m not sure that 15″ seems is all that credible…
But really if I live on the coast, am I more worried about the *snail pace* of sea level rise in 90 years or the 10’+ storm surge from a Cat 3 hurricane every 5 years?
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/rahmstorf-2009-off-the-mark-again-part-1/
Maybe this can help you?
Comment by author
This post was published on March 21st, 2010. The same day I submitted a technical comment at RealClimate (where Stefan Rahmstorf is a contributor) which urged them to read my ClimateSanity post for more details.
My comment was deleted.
This was the first time I had ever submitted a comment at RealClimate, but I had heard that they had a tendency to delete difficult comments. I figured they would consider my comment to be a problem, so I made a screen image of the comment submission.
You can see that screen image here.
As you can see, my comment was technical in nature, but problematic for Vermeer and Rahmstorf. And as I suspected, they deleted it.
The same thing happened with a more recent comment, which you can read here
This is even more interesting when you consider the tone and content of the other comments that they did not delete. Keep reading here to see some comments concerning my post by some RealClimate readers. Not exactly erudite stuff.
You may not be aware that I have had previous interactions with Stefan Rahmstorf. You can read about it here . I don’t think Rahmstorf was much willing to deal with me after that.
Here is the bottom line: Rahmstorf has become quite prominent in the global warming sphere. Many influential people use his sea-level rise projections to justify their desire to change the economy of the entire planet. If Rahmstorf wants to have that kind of power, then he is obligated address serious questions and criticisms, whether of not he likes the forum or format of those criticisms.
I hope you continue to read my long series of posts concerning Vermeer’s and Rahmstorf’s PNAS article. You can see an index of those posts here. I would especially urge you to read parts 9 & 10.
I think the inescapable conclusion is that their sea-level projections for the 21st century are bogus. Given the influence that Rahmstorf seems to hold with “policymakers,” he has the obligation to “fess-up.”
Best regards,
ClimateSanity
Tom Harley says:
February 24, 2011 at 7:16 pm
With BOM’s new building so close to high water, they now seem to have confidence in sea level not rising, at least here in Broome.
– – – – – – – – – –
That’s good news, and it agrees empirically with Al Gore’s purchase of an $8.8 million home in a seaside California community.
This is OT, but a big “Howdy” to John Droz! I was a fan of his marvelous “Mac vs. PC” website, now
http://macvspc.info/index.html
which I used to recommend heartily as Apple was emerging from the dark days of the 1990s. Now of course the Macintosh computer is becoming the favorite of college students and (increasingly) scientists and other professionals, though there are still a lot of PC holdouts here (including Anthony, who hasn’t figured out that he can run his vertical-market applications on virtual machines and still enjoy the stability and elegance of OS X).
Glad to see you’re on the side of Climate Realism, too, and have not succumbed to the dire emotional hysteria of the Enviro-Alarmists.
Let those folks in NC watch Nils-Axel Mörner’s videos about the Maldives and the myth of the rising ocean (someone has probably posted the links above).
/Mr Lynn
John,
Definitely include Nils-Axel Mörner in your discussion.
He has been specializing on the subject for his entire career….and is one of the best authorities on the subject, on the entire planet.
His email is morner@pog.nu and he is very responsive.
He is aware that NC and VA sit in a similar glacial forebulge region from the last glaciation (similar to the North Sea area), and that land areas there are subsiding at larger rates than others.
Also…keep in mind that a few hundred years of geological history on the coastal plain muck of the East Coast of the USA…is not enough to spell out a long term trend.
Physical shifts in the GulfStream, plus a variety of subsidence issues, may have contributed to the increase of “sea level rise” of recent years…among others.
The global “sea level” “sphere”, like a oscillating bubble, is constantly redistributing itself too, over many years and decades and longer.
The NC initiative, while progressive and somewhat warranted, is STILL reactionary and on too short of a geologic time scale, as well as being based upon models…not actual observations.
Even the observations are flawed because the tide gauges are flawed.
Must look to satellite altimetry readings for better accuracy.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Also, keep in mind that
PS My wife and I honeymooned on Long Beach, NC, back in the ’70s. Has the rising sea wiped out all those houses along the shore? I’m thinking we should go back for our 40th, in 2013—if not sooner, and I’ll bet I won’t see much difference.
/Mr Lynn
steven mosher says:
Plan on a meter. Hope the truth is less than that.
===================
Really? A meter??
Show forth the data (not the modeling).
And don’t just give me tide gauges or anything like that.
All of those are non-starters.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I’d have to agree with Mr. Mosher for the most part. Since coastal development is problematic for many more reasons than rising sea level and most estimates of sea level rise are global average numbers which are basically wild ass guesses and even if correct would not necessarily be representative of the levels in any particular regional coastal area, it would be prudent to craft coastal development restrictions to a more stringent standard than would be likely to eventuate. Of course in the context of coastal development regulation even a meter of sea level rise would likely be subsumed in the the systemic and chaotic variability of the extreme events these regs are meant to address. With a 20 foot storm surge coming in at high tide an additional foot of seas from rising sea levels is unlikely to be the most significant threat facing those living in coastal communities.
Here are a few postings from Steve McIntyre about Rahmstorf et al 2007
http://climateaudit.org/2009/07/03/the-secret-of-the-rahmstorf-non-linear-trend/
http://climateaudit.org/2009/07/08/rahmstorf-et-al-reject-ipcc-procedure/
http://climateaudit.org/2009/08/07/rahmstorf-sea-level-source-code-and-transliteration/
It is probably one of the poorest publications ever. He computed more or less a smoothed function with a few years of data and extrapolated these to the very distant future.
Here is a graph showing the stupidity and complete lack of robustness of his approach:
If new newer data from 2007 and 2008 was added, his function moves away from the upper limit and start to look completely different. Should be even worse when the recent decline in sea-levels is added. Scare gone.
http://i39.tinypic.com/6fnvqa.gif
(I think commenter John A submitted this at climateaudit)
Dave Wendt says:
February 24, 2011 at 9:50 pm
I’d have to agree with Mr. Mosher for the most part. Since coastal development is problematic for many more reasons than rising sea level and most estimates of sea level rise are global average numbers which are basically wild ass guesses and even if correct would not necessarily be representative of the levels in any particular
regional coastal area, it would be prudent to craft coastal development restrictions to a more stringent standard than would be likely to eventuate.
=======================
An extension of social engineering, really.
You (and I can not believe I am disagreeing with you here because you are usually on point) and Mosher are falling back into idealistic and non-economic models…as opposed to real-world observations.
FACT: Most of America’s influential population lives within range of the coast.
FACT: That is not going to change, for any time (or eon) soon.
Follow the $$$ baby.
Step 1: Ask the 50 Million people in America’s largest mega-region, where they are from???
Within about 50 feet of sea level on the East Coast, that’s where!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Sorry, the picture above was the temperature trend and not the sea-level trend.
It is still a prove that his sea-level trend projection (using the same method) is not robust. With the recent decline it will look completely different and will be MUCH lower.
You might want to follow up on this — it considers additional sources of sea level rise other than AGW
http://wamu.org/news/11/02/24/chesapeake_region_leads_east_coast_in_sea_level_rise.php
savethesharks
Why plan on a meter?
If you ask me to use the best available science to predict sea level rise, I’ll use a GCM.
Knowing full well its limitations. Then, I’d look to add a safety factor beyond that.
Then I’d PLAN for that. I’d probably do some cost sensitivity studies around that.
Then build an implementation plan that scheduled actions over time. Then I’d continue to study the hell out of that estimate and adjust the implementation plan as we got better science.
If your more risk adverse use 2 meters, I’m ok with that as well
Aussiedan.
Sea level rise varies depending on your location. So its really a local issue.
What Im suggesting is that instead of addressing the problem globally, it should be tackled locally. Its silly for movie stars living in the high tide of malibu, to dictate that the rest of us should forgo burning fossil fuels SO THAT they can continue to live in an area that climate science indicates might be inundated. They should use a 1 meter estimate and change their coastal development plans accordingly. Put the cost where the risk is. But dont come crying for a bailout if the sea rises and you continued to live there and build there when you were warned that there was a chance (even a slight one) that the sea would rise ( from whatever cause)
The same thing is going on here in Norway. A report was made to give advice to politicians regarding future climate change.
The sea level estimates from IPCC were rejected, and the sea level projections were entirely based on a local adaptation of Rahmstorf 2007, giving estimates of more than 1 meter rise by 2100.
No credible reason was given to justify the use of Rahmstorf instead of the IPCC estimates.
It seems that Rahmstorf is a rising star, and I fear that the sea level projections of the next IPCC report will be based on his work, of course making future sea level rise “much worse than we thought”.
Here are some comments on rahmstorfs work:
– “The Australian reports a major new controversy after Britain’s Met Office denounced research from Stefan Rahmstorf suggesting that sea levels may increase by more than 1.8m by 2100.
Jason Lowe, a leading Met Office climate researcher, said: “We think such a big rise by 2100 is actually incredibly unlikely. The mathematical approach used to calculate the rise is completely unsatisfactory.”
Critic Simon Holgate, a sea-level expert at the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Merseyside, has written to Science magazine, attacking Professor Rahmstorf’s work as “simplistic”.
“Rahmstorf’s real skill seems to be in publishing extreme papers just before big conferences like Copenhagen, when they are guaranteed attention,” Dr Holgate said.
The report states:
Based on the 17cm increase that occurred from 1881 to 2001, Professor Rahmstorf calculated that a predicted 5 degrees increase in global temperature would raise sea levels by up to 188cm.
Its worse than that. It appears that the extrapolation in R’s model is actually based in a non-significant rate increase of sea level w.r.t. temperature, i.e. a tiny derivative of already problematic data.”
A comprehensive “audit” of Rahmstorf seems to be the way to go.
Dear Mr. Droz,
I have read the report you linked to on your post. I do not subscribe to the notion that sea-level rise is an imminent and present threat. My bias now up front, I still find the report’s conclusions and recommendations quite sensible. They basically state that the current state of the science is not incontrovertible, suggest that more measurement stations be funded and, with more accurate data collection in place, the issue be re-examined every five years thereafter, or sooner than every five years if conditions should warrant it. Seems like a perfectly sensible approach to me.
Best,
Jose Suro
Anthony, thanks for cross posting this. John Droz’s needs were specific to North Carolina and the Rahmstorf projections. Hopefully he will find someone familiar with both.
I read somewhere that there is a possibility that a tremor could knock one of the cliffs off a Canary Island, which in turn could create a tsunami that would sweep across the Atlantic and inundate the entire east coast of the United States. How plausible this is I’ve no idea, but you could argue that the North Carolineans should built a gigantic sea wall to prevent being swamped by such an event. Hey, you can’t be too careful, right?
/Mr Lynn
The link below is to a USGS publication “National Assessment of Shoreline Change: Historical shoreline change along the New England and Mid Atlantic Coasts” Good figures and data showing the general rise
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1118/pdf/of2010-1118.pdf
Hector, as you noticed, I said (if it happens), and my subsequent comments indicate that that kind of rate (as much as 1 meter by 2100) will be inconsequential to the coastline of North Carolina.
The barrier islands are dynamic, and as other posters have mentioned, respond to storm surges and seasonal changes, they change shape and position over time, but do not disappear. Any buildings on them cannot be expected to last for more than a few decades without losing their foundations. Many other coastal landforms are almost as ephemeral, and are really not suitable for permanent structures.
My point is that the threat of sea level rise is not so dangerous as assumed, certain coastal plains may be affected, but the Netherlands dikes system has demonstrated this can be dealt with.
9 inches in 90 years is insignificant, 4 times that is more significant, but still not a big problem. I’ll append the necessary caveat “if it happens”, because as you said, other, less likely things might also happen. A more rational approach is to designate certain landforms and geographical situations as special insurance zones, where compensation is limited for damages relating to storms and flooding events.
This discussion does bring up the question “Can a drop in sea level indicate the beginning of a new Ice Age?” Satellite measurements are precise enough to show a minor drop. Such a drop would have to be due to either cooler oceans, larger glaciers, sinking sea floor, or some other unknown factor. Of those scenarios, I would believe cooler oceans and larger glaciers first – both an indicator that the planet is entering a cooler phase. The idea that ANYTHING in nature is “static” is unscientific. That includes climate and sea level.
Mr Droz,
The following is from the report you cite and is focused on NC:
This record resolves an increase in the rate of SLR from 0.8 mm per year to 3.8 mm per year that occurred AD 1879-1915, which corresponds well with nearby tide gauges.
Ask the authors to explain how CO2 induced warming caused that increase in NC (note the date).
Can I suggest to John Droz Jr. an old-fashioned, direct method for determining sea level rise that impressed me in 2008. It is known that water held in storage can influence the measured height of sea level. As a result, sea level curves in the literature can appear irregular and hard to evaluate. B. F. Chao, Y. H. Yu, and Y. S. Li were determined to overcome this problem. They collected information about all dams built in the world since the year 1900 and then made corrections to published sea level curves for all the water held back by these dams. When they were done with this they found that the corrected sea level curve became linear for at least the last eighty years and that the slope of this curve was 2.46 millimeters per year. I take the view that anything that has been linear for that long is not about to change anytime soon. You will find their report in the 11th April 2008 Science magazine, pages 212-214. Among other things you can determine from their result that sea level rise for a century should come out as 24.6 centimeters, just under ten inches. Ignore Al Gore (20 feet) and other latecomers who have expensive satellites at their disposal. If there are discrepancies ask if their result makes allowance for water held in storage.
One other factor to consider is the IPCC SRES that call for atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 1000 ppm in the worst cases, and at least doubling in their base case. It is very unlikely that there is enough available fossil fuel, that can be extracted at a sufficiently rapid rate, to get atmospheric CO2 concentration above 500-550 ppm by 2100. With declining availability of fossil fuels, especially petroleum in the short run, and corresponding price increases, the shifts to both efficiency and alternatives will accelerate, further reducing the anthropogenically generated CO2 concentration rise rate. Thus the IPCC warming scenarios just can’t be supported, and therefore their ocean level rise rates can’t be supported.