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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Some preliminary calculations on the impact of an initial sea level rise of 17cm (assuming ALL of the 17cm is an anthropogenic result) reveals some startling facts.
Homes and businesses in Japan washed off of their foundations occurred 18 seconds sooner than if the sea level had been 17cm lower at the inception of the tsunami.
The total damage to the reactor’s back up generators would have been .02% less with an initial sea level of 17cm lower. Those same generators would have also lasted an additional 42 seconds with the lower sea level.
The additional radiation released as a result of the higher initial sea level is below detectable limits.
The total estimated damage is currently estimated at $309Billion, and my calculations show the damage would have only been $308,998,762 had the sea level been lower by 17cm.
These figures are in consideration of a 17cm sea level rise over the entire 20th century, while it should be considered that the total sea level rise as a direct result of anthropogenic forcing during the time since the construction of the existing homes, businesses, infrastructure and nuclear power plants is appropriate to the discussion.
I looked up what the tide gauges in Japan at http://www.docstoc.com/docs/10897163/National-Report-of-Japan
to see what they say about sea levels in Japan. Actually the sea level for Japan in the last few years is lower than what it was in the 1950s.
@onion says:
March 23, 2011 at 12:21 pm
“Doesn’t the damage depend on the energy of the wave which depends on more than the height? Those waves were travelling at tremendous speed and horizontal propulsive energy with an incredibly large mass of water behind them
Imagine the earthquake happened at a much greater depth (which would be equivalent to a higher sea level). Wouldn’t the energy of the tsunami be less?”
The wave speed is fixed. A loud sound does not travel faster than a quiet sound. At a greater depth the energy is the same but the energy dissipates in the water, eventually becoming heat. More water would increase the wave size directly but decrease it by dissipation. At least this is my intuitive sense of the main factors. I have no idea what depth gives the maximum wave size/mass/destructiveness.
TZ says:
March 23, 2011 at 10:30 am
“Doesn’t a 17cm increase play a similarly critical role in Pachauri’s magnum opus, Return to Almora?”
Spot on. I think Pachauri is thinking about himself again. However, his IPCC heart is in the right place. There is always more to fear and more to fear from less. For Pachauri, a 17 cm sea level rise that occurred before the facility was built is reason enough for a ten percent surcharge on all incomes in the world. Hysteria!
17cm on a 10 meter tsunami that washed over every single levy and protection wall… Yeah, that’s going to change a lot… Not.
A few thousand years ago the sea levels were several times low enough to allow animals AND humans to settle in Japan. OMG! Those cavemen created the worst men-made global warming in history!
Pop Quiz Answer:
a) 17cm
(a short plank is about 1 cm thick; Pachari is only as thick as two of these!)
/sarc
Pachauri is complaining that the rampaging elephant had just had lunch before he flattened your house.
17/1400 = 1.2% Puh-lease.
17cm is a little less than 7″, nah a little less than 6& 3/4″, nah a little less than 3& 11/16″ (-.005″).
its a lot less than normal high tide.
its quite a bit less than fall extreme high tide.
its a he&& of a lot less than spring extreme high tide (3-4 feet on the california coast).
as i remember this guy has been beating the drum about the effect of what are to us “minor” tides/waves for years. if the coast is so flat in the areas where he lives or grew up or owes political favors to why don’t they build breakwaters etc.. they could get pretty good advice from the dutch. and if they can’t afford madinery to do the deed then the chinese can advise them on how to do it by hand.
coulldn’t be that he’s just making money out of this stuff?
nahhhhhhh.
C
Skip, You do know the difference between 17 cm and 1.7m?
Someone has to respond to Skip’s stupid comments.
1. No one is arguing that there has been a small rise in sea level over the past century – although apparently slowing now. This probably has something to do with the ~0.7 degrees C rise in Earth’s temperature witnessed over the past 150 years. The alarmists will say this is all down to rising CO2 levels, while the sceptics say it may have a little to do with the activities of man, but mostly this rise is just part of the Earth’s normal climatic cycles. If you don’t believe in the Earth’s normal climatic cycles, then you can fully embrace the alarmist argument.
2. As someone else has already said here, 17cms is dwarfed many times over by the daily tidal movements – so Patchy’s statement is particularly stupid.
3. Much of the recent sea level rise is probably caused by residual ‘isostatic bounce’ of the Earth’s crust as a result of the major glacial melt 10-12,000 years ago.
As for Patchi, this is a man with dubious business dealings, a controller of dodgy charitable organisations, an expert at feeding from government grant troughs, a purveyor of soft core porn and a man as far removed from an understanding of real science as it is possible to be.
He is an embarrassment to the alarmist cause, but refuses to make way for younger more honest individuals. So when this man makes yet another goofy statement to the press, there are certain to be many who pounce upon it as being pure unadulterated BS.
for those asking, 3mm per year(not looking to see if the ocean is rising or falling faster at that point just the “average” 3+-0.4- i notice someone pointing out that the reference page has the sea level dropping in that area of japan…)
the facility is 40 yrs old say it took 5 years to build so 45yrs ago
the ocean would have risen between ~12-15.3 mm(2.6mmx45/10 to 3.4×45/10)
so 17 is a good guess
Dr. Pachauri has got it all wrong. That 17cm actually helped the situation because it cut 17cm out of the vertical height they had to pump the sea water up to cool the reactor cores.
If they had to pump that water another 17cm up to the reactor, it could have been worse than we thought. /sarc off
skip says:
March 23, 2011 at 12:18 pm
“Does it even occur to any of you people that what the makes the tsunami more devastating is not the extra 17 inches of height per se, but the overall *mass* of water that strikes via tsunami because sea level is higher? Is this really that hard to understand?”
and…
“Fourth grade proficiency in math shows how the 17 cm derives from the observed yearly means. (No, I’m not giving any hints.)”
Not only are you a boorish and gratuitously rude fellow, you are also stupid enough not to have read over your childish, vituperative and ill considered rant before posting.
There is an old motto ” manners makyth the man”. Quite what the tenor of your post makes of you, I will leave you to consider.
Pachauri must be using a broken ruler to measure sea level and tsunami.
*These and other natural factors could easily have larger ‘multiplier’ effects on the tectonically induced tsunami that resulted, than any purported 17cm of sea level rise over the last century.*
Straw man and red herring. The possibility of other factors is neither in dispute nor the issue. The point is that AW has again made another absurd argument against an IPCC “icon” in the hope of a skeptical decapitation strike, and he failed.
*Further, the dispute is over the unsubstantiated claim that mankind (Bad man – Bad!) has had some or any influence on the ‘average sea level height’ in the last century . . . *
Another straw man and red herring. That is also a different argument. Again, AW thinks he has made a clever retort against the IPCC and all he has done is show his own gullibility. The fact that you defend it with these side bars shows your own.
Let me ask you a direct question, Mac: Do you agree, as AW argues, that the hypothetical 17 cm increase in height of the tsunami is the crucial factor in determining whether sea level rise exacerbates tsunami damage?
Again, please consider that a direct question.
skip says:
March 23, 2011 at 12:18 pm
“Does it even occur to any of you people that what the makes the tsunami more devastating is not the extra 17 inches of height per se, but the overall *mass* of water that strikes via tsunami because sea level is higher? Is this really that hard to understand?”
Now, this person is a first rate hysteric. This person has a golden future at the IPCC or as a network anchor specializing in events that can be spun as disasters. Notice the subtle way that 17 cm becomes 17 inches and that a flood becomes one massive strike!
Oh for godsakes . . .
Guys, please . . . what is the average wave length of a tsunami? Its not a roller that hits land like something you surf on. Tsunamis can have wavelengths of 100s of km. An extra 17 centimeters of *that* will have a massive additional impact by virtue of added *mass* of water, not *height*, all other things being equal. That’s Pachauri’s point, and AW’s fixation on the additional height as the crucial factor shows he has no discernment. Quit defending this nonsense!
Is Pachauri still leading AR5? I thought he had been eased out.
Many good points here re extent of rise or otherwise, its time frame, its causes and other factors.
Andrew Bolt made the point that attention seeking warmist alarmist Tim Flannery is the ideal person to front Oz PM Mrs Brown’s Climate Commission. For the same reason I agree with other commenters that Pachauri is the ideal person to front the IPCC.
Perhaps he should return to railway engineering. Well, no. I can see what the results of that could be.
And I *fixed* my editing errors before even noticing any responses. For Godsakes! Because AW organizes this blog so goofily–most recent comments at bottom–I didn’t even realize there had been responses to my initially unedited post and had caught the errors myself. Brother!
REPLY: Oh right, now your inability to keep your units straight is *my* fault. Heh. – Anthony
skip says:
March 23, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“Here is the corrected version with all typos/edits fixed.”
Skip’s back! He is a true Warmista. Not a word written to him had an impact. What hath Warmista wrought?
for those wondering about the land-shift the 9.0 quake caused….
Oshika peninsula in Miyagi prefecture shifted a whole 5.3 meters (17 ft) east and its land sank 1.2 meters (4 ft).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110319/wl_nm/us_japan_quake
Using my 4th grade math skillz it would seem that 17cm has nothing to do with anything when the ground drops 1.2 meters.
~Norby
skip,
This article has been rated “excellent” by 32 people so far. Did it ever occur to you that you might be mistaken, and that everyone else is correct?
The use of this sort of thing by, so called, scientists to try to promote a point of view is abhorent. Is Dr. Pachauri really saying all those thousands of lives lost are down to such a small sea level rise? If so then he is an arrogant fool. He should be deeply ashamed of himself and so should all the others who are using the misery and suffering of so many in a bid to promote their own inflated positions. The Japanese people are not statistics or scientific theories, they are real and they deserve more respect.
[Snip. If you’re going to insult our host, do it elsewhere. ~dbs, mod.]