From this article in The Hindu: (h/t to WUWT reader Adam Gallon)
“In the 20th century, sea-level rise was recorded at an average of 17 centimetres. If the sea-level was significantly lower, clearly the same tsunami would have had a less devastating effect. Therefore, sea-level rise is a kind of multiplier of the kinds of threats and negative impacts that will take place anyway,”
It seems to me that clearly Dr. Pachauri can’t mentally manage the concept of scale. Here’s the NOAA wave height graphic that was flashed around the world on news media shortly after the Tsunami Warning was issued, while the tsunami was still traveling across the Pacific:
Source: NOAA Center for Tsunami Research and NOAA Scientific Visualization Lab
Note the inset I added, now here’s that inset area magnified with the color key added and the 17cm Pachauri mentions marked:
Hmmm, for the people of Japan in the hardest hit areas, I don’t think it would matter much. But let’s compare the numbers and find out.
We can describe it another way in the scale of familiar human experience. Wiki gives this 2006 value for the average height of the Japanese people, the left figure is male, the right is female:
| Japan | 1.715 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in) | 1.580 m (5 ft 2 in) |
Let’s look at some other things:
Bonsai trees reach an average height of two feet (61cm)
Read more: Why Is the Bonsai Tree Passed Down Within the Family? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_6744566_bonsai-passed-down-within-family_.html#ixzz1HR1GULDU
From Wiki, the height of the sea wall at the Fukushima reactor site:
“The plant was protected by a sea wall and designed to withstand a tsunami of 5.7 [570cm] meters…”
The actual height of the Tsunami wave there:
…but the tsunami had a height of about 14 meters [1400 cm] and topped this sea wall
OK let’s make some scale imagery to help visualize these values:
Now let’s insert the image above into the image which shows the height of the Tsunami as reported at the Fukushima reactor complex:
Click the above image to present it at the actual 1 pixel = 1 centimeter scale on your monitor.
That 17 centimeters that Dr. Pachauri speaks of makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
Note to other bloggers: feel free to use these graphics under “fair use” terms, but please provide a link back to this article at:
UPDATE: I had noted the actual sea level trend near the north coast of Japan as measured by satellites, but figured I need not mention it since the story stood well enough on its own.
Commenter “Skip” however seemed to think otherwise, so I had to bring it up. See below:
Works out negative with the correction applied too: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib.jpg
Note the negative trend in sea level for Japan’s north coast, which makes Pachy’s 17cm worries totally pointless. Doesn’t he have Internet access?
UPDATE2: This report of sea level trends in Japan from the Japan Meteorological agency shows the current SL lower than in 1950 by about 20mm. That certainly doesn’t square with AGW theory well, and again makes Pachy’s 17cm value for the area pointless. See: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10897163/National-Report-of-Japan
h/t to WUWT reader “An Inquirer” for the report
Bonsai trees reach an average height of two feet
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Projection, Skippy. To comment on Pachauri isn’t a fixation. It’s a fixation when you’re On/Off switch is wired around, and you won’t let go.
I liked Anthony’s graphic. It made the point. And I suspect you’re a closet Pachauri groupie. There’s no defense of his self-serving aggrandizement at our expense. Even his own countrymen reject his anti-CO2 preaching and scolding, and his businesses get rich via the UN resources directed solely by Pachauri himself.
Skip, you’re like a guy who goes into an outhouse and comes out covered in fecal matter.
Everyone wonders, “How is that even possible? Did he fall in?”
I don’t think you have a “fixation”…
It’s more like “religious brainwashing”…
or a “possession” that you fell into.
Prayer will help.
Go to church.
Amen.
Now let me first qualify that I am only responding to follow up comments, I still concede my misuse of the open ocean wavelengths of tsunamis, ok?
*The extra 17cm would not make the dead even deader.*
Never argued. And that you are still focusing on the 17 cm of *height* shows that you too were fooled by graphic’s cardboard argument. The issue is the additional *volume/mass* of water striking a fixed land location all other things being equal. That *would* magnify the destructive force of the tsunami. To probably oversimplify, you have to add the 17 cm to the *bottom* of a wave which has a distance across the crest of *thousands* of meters, not the few dozen meters that AW’s graph depicted. Multiply that times .17 and we are talking literally thousands of additional kilotons of water rushing into a fixed land location of even small width, all other things being equal. It won’t make the dead an deader, but it might very well make a larger number of dead. That is nothing to scoff at, which AW’s graphic and presentation, as well as the numerous jeering commentators duped by it, did.
*And you’re complaining about the depiction of the tsunami wave in the graphic? Please, be consistent, and complain how the people weren’t anatomically correct as well!*
Fine. I agree they are ugly, unrealistic, preposterous looking figurines. I don’t see how that is relevant to anything but I hope you are impressed with my improved consistency.
This is why the socialist-man-hating-one-world-government-promoting-IPCC-conspirators pay me the big bucks, I guess.
REPLY: Oh, I had a coughing eyes watering LOL attack reading this! You go Skippy! – Anthony
Skip you are definitely over the top… 17cm over the top to be exact !!…
(but you’re behaving like you’re “a quart low”…)
I mentioned this before but to empathize, I think you should look into this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Effects_of_sleep_deprivation.svg
Your judgment seems off.
That’s it?
That’s the response?
AW, I submit that you *never* considered the length of the approaching tsunami (from the front to the back of the cresting wave) when making your blithe dismissal of Puachari.
Am I wrong? *Had* you considered that?
I want to hear your *honest* answer of this question.
I admitted my mistake (imposing the deep ocean wavelength of a tsunami on the shore, where the run up contracts the wavelength and ups the amplitude) . Let’s see if you can admit yours.
Again, AW, I respect you for hiding my identity. That counts for much. It shows character and virtue. Why not extend that same virtue in admitting that you’d never considered the points I made? (Again, not that this mitigates my mistake.)
REPLY: I had considered the issue broadly, but chose only to speak to what Dr. Pachauri actually said, and compare height. I actually tried and discarded a couple of different image designs before settling on these. No matter whether you compare water by height, volume, gallons, barrels, or any other metric, the side argument you are making is irrelevant to the scale of the event. That’s it, that’s my final answer. – Anthony
[snip – Skip, we’re done, I’m not going to waste any more time on your arguments. You aren’t satisfied with my answer, so we’ll have to agree to disagree. -thread closed – Anthony]