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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At the risk of revealing what might be a grade four level grasp of physics (and I’m happy to take any instruction needed here) I do have a question about a point Skip seems so determined to push. As preamble here are a couple quotes from his earlier posts.
At 1:13 he writes, “…what the (sic) makes the tsunami more devastating is not the extra 17 cm of height per se, but the overall *mass* of water that strikes via tsunami because sea level is higher?”. He goes on to say, “you’re talking about literally tens of *billions* of kilo*tons* of additional seawater in 2011 relative to 1900, all other things being equal. It’s the mass of water that kills, not the height”. He repeats this claim at 2:04pm.
Then, at 4:12pm Skip argues that, “The key point here is that AW is trying to argue that 17 cm is not a whole lot relative to the height of a Japanese person or a water barrier, when the issue is the increased *volume* and thus mass of water….”
The question I have relates to the connection between mass and volume. What, exactly is the cause of this increased volume of water that makes sea levels 17cm higher? If it is assumed to be entirely the result of thermal expansion (GW), then would it not be the case that the mass (weight) of the water has not changed, and hence this increased height (volume) of the wave would have a lower energy per unit of volume, and thus render this added 17cm more or less impotent?
My apologies for missing this if it was addressed earlier.
Ron
Skip,
The wave is the mass of water above the existing sea level. When the wave has gone, the sea level will be back where it was.
If the sea level was higher to start with, it ends up higher, and vice versa.
My advice to you is to stand where a large tsunami is about to hit. You’ll see all the water being drawn away before it hits. That is the wave, and how it works. That 17cm is just not there when the wave hits, even it it did have any additional effect. Then run…. 😉
What comes onto land is the wave. The wave is the water above existing sea level. The rest stays where it was (not quite as simple, but close enough). The extra 17 cm before the wave appears does not make the wave itself any larger.
I am not sure how I can make it simpler.
I agree with others here that Patchy is the perfect chairman of the IPCC and I sincerely hope he stays on. After all, he is so obviously arrogant, wrong, corrupt and woefully ignorant of basic physics that I learnt in high school, that he is the perfect leader to lead the IPCC to its eventual merciful and ignoble implosion of wild rhetoric and political polemic.
Go Patchy!
I learned much from watching skip’s fourth grade math class. No sure he did though.
Mark T says:
March 23, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Thank you, Mark. That was the bit I was grappling for and could not quite recall.
That first image would not Pachauri’s retinal scan by any chance ?
@Ben Klijn of Houston who said:
I know THAT feeling. I have recursed a few academics in my days in grad school!
Climate Science is very much a controlled religion, Pachauri is just one many high priests. Everybody knows if Pachauri was in Japan at the time of the earthquake that he would have taken out his 17 cm squared stained silk handkerchief and held back the tsunami, that’s just the kind of hero he is.
There isn’t a single natural disaster in the world that Pachauri’s cult would not have stopped, had people listened to his after-event prophecies!! Pachauri, or should we say Sanjay, is the world’s first truly super wanker tsunami buster.
“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”
In the areas that did rise there was no possible human impact prior to 1960s. The trend was up prior to this anyway, and continued so until 2005 at about the same rate. Humans are not likely responible for more then 4 or 5 C.M. of the trend, at the most.
Good analogy. I often used the virus metaphor in the past to describe what happens when an infection (let’s call it liberal green progressive socialism) is dropped into a population lacking a recent immunity. Some will develop a resistance and fight on and pass on this new trait to their offspring, while others will succumb to the illness and/or spread it others causing great mayhem in the community, but with the potential to impact our entire civilization. Your post and current events makes me think of yet another analogy, that of:
‘Fissioning stupidity‘. The net effect of decades of trendy mis-education has produced a tangible result: a civilization comparable to a fissionable fuel perhaps approaching critical mass. The simultaneous AGW insanity demonstrated by scientists, academics and citizens all over this big blue planet can be likened to spontaneous fissioning where escaping neutrons (Mann, Romm, Gore) impact other unstable isotopes (greenies, progressives, socialists, malcontents, etc) feeding further reactions. Some of these reactions yield dramatic short-lived power excursions (AGW wild-eyed outbursts) but then the neutron counters return to normal. However the very recent insane mantra of claiming Blizzards demonstrate AGW, sure looks like a superprompt critical event.
Normally the fissionable fuel is spent or moderated long before any criticality incidents are realized, however in this brave new world we have major media, colleges, universities and even grade schools (uggh!) working overtime as breeder reactors churning out more efficient highly enriched nuclear material. So we are entering a new experiment now, one with the vital neutron moderator influence removed (the absence of traditional academic and media responsibility and self-restraint mechanisms). In such a situation, well, anything is possible.
Thankfully blogs like WUWT and CA with threads like this act as impromptu geiger counters and dosimeters. It gives a chance for stable isotopes (rational people) to act as control rods against the hysteria thereby reducing the probability of a meltdown.
😉
From old engineer on March 23, 2011 at 7:22 pm:
NWS-NOAA also has an online brochure:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/brochures/tsunami.htm
Over on the one Japanese nuclear thread, I was arguing with some anti-nuke activist after virtually everyone else left. Life intervened before I could finish and post the one reply. They were looking at the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami (which flopped as an example) and then the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan as a “known occurrence” of tsunami waves up to 10 meters in height, therefore the reactors and the diesel generators should have been protected to (at least?) that height.
In the linked brochure, it says “Large tsunamis have been known to rise over 100 feet…”
Somewhere on the planet, at some point in time, there was at least one known instance of a tsunami wave over 30.48 meters. Therefore, the tsunami wall protection in Japan should be at least 31 meters above sea level. To be on the safe side, 35 meters sounds reasonable.
A robust sea wall over ten stories high protecting facilities and people in Japan, because of a known example of at least one instance, somewhere at sometime, of a tsunami wave over 100 feet (30.48 meters) tall? Yep, that makes perfect sense, to some people, apparently.
Just a question. If the whole ocean level grew 8 to 17 cm in the 20th century, that would be a huge increase in total volume and mass, looking at the entire pacific ocean. Wouldn’t this increase in total mass influence tsunami behaviour?
It appears that Dr. Pachauri does not know his tsunami from his tumescent.
It would appear that almost everyone commenting has missed the most salient point here. Although the consensus +17cm change in GMSL, though there seem to be as many estimates for the number as there are people making the estimates, might have made an incremental change in effect of the tsunami, or not, the fact is that the coast of Japan in the area in question didn’t experience any of it. Both tide gauges and sat data show declining sea levels in the area.
Then of course, there is the larger problem that GMSL is pretty much a meaningless concept in the first place. Archimedes is famously misquoted as saying ” Give me a lever and a place to stand and I’ll move the world”. Anyone trying to measure the sea level of the planet has the same problem as Archimedes, there is literally no place to stand to take the measurement. Any place on the globe you chose to place a tide gauge is apt to be moving as much or more than any change you are trying to measure. The addition of satellites improved the situation somewhat, but the sat systems aren’t actually referenced to the planet itself, but to a reference ellipsoid and the geoid. Both of these are entirely artificial concepts with only a fairly loose relationship to the physical reality of the planet. The gravitational center of the planet is believed to move about significantly and continually. The gravitational center of the reference ellipsoid is fixed. Also the mathematical parameters that define it are one set of a number of which have been put forward over the years and there isn’t really any rock solid way to determine which is the best fit.
The geoid, an idealized model of the equipotential surface the oceans would form if all land masses were permeable to the oceans waters and all effects other than variances in the gravitational strength of the planet were removed, has undulations of 200 METERS over the span of the globe and data from GRACE and GOCE satellites indicate that the variance in gravitational strength is greater than had been thought. They are trying to modify the geoid model to reflect the new data, but that puts all the old data on sea level from the Topex/Poseidon generation sats into question.
But even if they could actually determine the GMSL to the hyperprecision that it is always quoted, it would still be meaningless because the water in the oceans is not like the water in a bath tub and knowing the average level will tell you nothing about any particular regional coast, as the data from Japan clearly illustrate. Given that we are supposed to drowning ourselves by melting glaciers and ice sheets with our carbon profligacy it is interesting to note on the map of sea level trends that Anthony posted above, and on all similar maps I’ve come across, the one big “hot” spot for most sea level rise is located in the Pacific north of Australia, an area not known for a lot of glaciation.
The math doesn’t matter to Pachauri. The important thing is to attach, subliminally, the idea “disaster multplier” to “climate change.” So that people associate “climate change” with disaster. As “climate change” has already been associated with fossil fuels/CO2, when it comes time to support a carbon dioxide tax / regulation etc., people will have become conditioned to think of CO2 as causing disaster. There doesn’t need to be a clear causal chain [in a person’s mind]; in fact it’s the vagueness of the association that makes the association more emotional and therefore more powerful.
Everyone should be aware that Skip is only here to SDisturb. He and his ilk at ScienceBlogs has been constantly trashing this site, and insulting anyone who disagrees with the Faith. He’s not here for the science, he’s not here to learn something new. He just wants to go back his faithful clique and confirm that Anthony and this award winning blog is garbage. Nothing more. Best to ignore him.
Snip . . . Snip . . . Snip.
Is it not one-sided enough without AW snipping my responses?
Please note a number of things that I am *not* saying:
I do not deny that other factors affect sea level. I am not saying that the tsunami proves the AGW hypothesis. I am not saying 17 cm of sea level rise proves the AGW hypothesis (that is a different argument, Mac). I do not deny that other factors mentioned by a number of posters here (shifting tides, winds, tectonic plates) could affect the destructive power of this particular tsunami. I am not denying that energy level is a key component of a Tsunami’s destructive power (although greater volume of water also will hurt in a given location.)
My entire point was to address AW’s argument *on its own terms*.
People, go back and look at the graphic accompanying AW’s first post. Its as plain as the nose on your face. He shows a picture of two little people, a sturdy but short protective wall, and a tree. Look how short they all are relative to a tsunami, he proclaims. Whats an extra 17 cm? What a fool is Pauchari!
*That* is a terrible argument. Not one of you has addressed its terribleness.
If you want to argue that any number of other factors have affected the destructive force of this tsunami, I am not disputing you. But *holding all those factors* (winds, tectonic shifts, tides, poor adaptation in coastal construction, etc.) constant, the extra “17 cm” of water *will* cause substantially more destruction.
Please also note that AW is shifting the focus of his argument now: Sea levels around Japan have declined. But initially he tried to argue that an extra 17 cm of water was superfluous, and its telling that he now feels the need to censor me regarding it.
If this post survives moderation I’ll rethink my agnosticism.
[Reply: I snipped your insulting comment, not Anthony. ~dbs, mod.]
Reading Skippy’s comments, he strikes me as someone probably still at school and suffering from the lamentable state of our education system, especially when it has become prone to teaching trendy, as opposed to real, science.
Anyhow, Skippy serves his purpose and helps reminds us all of the quality of most AGW arguments/”science”.
I have attempted to respond in good faith to as many of the points raised here as possible in critiquing the completely irrational argument AW has made against Pauchari’s comments about sea level rise and the destructive force of tsunamis. When I respond to criticism my posts are snipped.
It is quite telling that the host of this forum relies on censorship. This is why [snip] are called just that.
[You may not refer to those you disagree with as “climate change deniers.” Read the site Policy. ~dbs, mod.]
I really would like to get a better understanding of this “rising sea level” business. Sounds as though somebody sticks a ruler in the sand somewhere and watches the level of the sea over a number of years. Yes? No, nonsense. Here in the UK our tidal range (the difference between high tide level and low tide level) varies between about 5.5 meters and over 10 meters according to season and moon phase (neaps and springs in yachting terms). I assume that we’re not unique in the world – I sailed in Bombay harbour many years ago and we had one heck of a tide there – so what is the level that people are making all these claims about? Is it the height of the highest tide? Or is it the mean height of the highest tides (MSLHWS), or is it the mean sea water level (MSL) a purely terrestrial “imaginery” reference used for survey maps, and so on. Whatever it is, the UK’s official Maritime Agency reports that “there has been no discernible change in sea levels for over a hundred years”
Mark_K says:
March 23, 2011 at 10:27 am
Aside from the fact that it was only 17cm, the fact is that people build relative to sea level, flood plain, etc. If the sea level had been two meters lower, the buildings would have been two meters lower.
And thus the wave height (relative to sea level) would also have been 17cm lower!
skip says:
March 23, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Owing to a decimal space out on my part the 1.7 must change to a .17 but it has no significant bearing on the argument.
(Now watch AW pounce with glee . . . brother.)
[Reply: Why would he? Anthony has been ignoring your comments. ~dbs, mod.]
Anthony sets us all a good example. Would be better if we all ignored skip’s comments, PAST & FUTURE!!
“…the extra “17 cm” of water *will* cause substantially more destruction.”
But that is the point that has been mentioned a number of times in responses to your posts and you haven’t respond at all.
There is no “extra 17 cm of water”. The height of the wave is above sea level, not above the sea level in 1900. With the same conditions, except for average sea leve,l the same earthquake in 1900 would have caused a tsunami of exactly the same height above sea level. The water above the epicenter being 17 cm higher doesn’t make the tsunami 17 cm higher.
Same size wave means same destructive force. Except that if sea level at Fukushima has risen by 17 cm then the gently sloping sea floor running up to the shore line is now longer than in 1900, so by forcing the wave to travel further it will have lost more kinetic energy before reaching the new higher shore line. So the effect of rising sea level would cause the wave to have less energy by the time it reached any structures not more.
I have attempted to respond in good faith to as many of the points raised here
Yeah, right. i tried that on ScienceBlogs after being invited to comment on my temperature analysis and all I got from people like you was continued insults. You consantly trashed WUWT as garbage, do I have to go back and report here some of your comments about Anthony and WUWT you have made there? Good faith, that’s a laugh. You just got borred at Coby’s blog without me around, so you came here looking for a thrill.
*The water above the epicenter being 17 cm higher doesn’t make the tsunami 17 cm higher.*
Maybe. Maybe not. I am *not* claiming to fully understand the fluid dynamics of tsunamis. I was responding to *AW’s* argument in the original post that Pauchari was being silly *even if the 17 cm increase is assumed.* I do not claim to know how increased ocean volume has affected this particular tsunami. I suspect that would be an interesting debate.
To repeat the point: Go back and look at AW’s graph and claims based on the relative height of Japanese people, protective walls, and trees. Its an outlandish argument. No one has addressed this. This is why AW is now switching the argument to the relative sea level rise around Japan. He realizes his trees-people-wall height argument is a loser.
* . . . the gently sloping sea floor running up to the shore line is now longer than in 1900 . . . *
By how much do you think? A meter? Two?
* . . . so by forcing the wave to travel further it will have lost more kinetic energy . . . *
How much relative to the additional volume of water striking a fixed land location if the ocean is, on average 17cm higher–as AW *assumed* in his initial dismissal of Pauchari? (The same dismissal that was voted “excellent” by so many visitors to this forum?) And that brings up another point someone posted earlier about relative regional sea level rise, but that is a different story . . .
Richard: I’ll ask again: Do you want me to talk about your Weather Channel pronouncements, your self-contradicting citations of Judith Curry (how’d the email exchange go?), or your postmodern use of the difference of means test? I’m sure your chums here would be quite impressed.