From the University of British Columbia, David Flanders is trying to scare Canadians over sea level rise. Only one problem, the math doesn’t work.
Preparing for the flood: Visualizations help communities plan for sea-level rise
Researchers at the University of British Columbia have produced computer visualizations of rising sea levels in a low-lying coastal municipality, illustrating ways to adapt to climate change impacts such as flooding and storms surges.
The researchers are working with a municipality south of Vancouver, Canada that is surrounded by water on three sides and is expecting the sea-level to rise by 1.2 metres by 2100 – a change that would affect a number of waterfront homes, inland suburban developments, roads and farmland.
Considerable infrastructure has been built below current and projected high water levels, and could be inundated in the event of a dike breach. The images produced show how different adaptation strategies that could be implemented in the municipality and are being used to help make decisions about how to best prepare for the future.
“To me, the visualizations are the only way that you can tell the complete story of climate change and its impacts in a low-lying coastal community,” says David Flanders, a UBC research scientist with the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP), who will present this research at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver on Sunday. “In other words, seeing really is believing in this case.”
“It can be hard to mentally grasp what rising sea-levels can mean on the ground but our visualizations give people a glimpse of what their future world will look and feel like in their own backyards. They help community members understand how their quality of life can be affected by climate change, and by the decisions they make to deal with climate impacts.”
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  IMAGE:Visualizations of higher water levels in Delta portray what would happen to the community if it does nothing to prepare for rising sea levels.Click here for more information. |
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BACKGROUND
The municipality of Delta, B.C. is in an agricultural region with a population of about 100,000 (Fig. 1). Historically, the municipality has used dykes to protect the land from flooding and tides – a common strategy used by coastal communities.
New provincial guidelines for the construction of new homes have more than doubled the recommended finished floor elevation to compensate for rising high water lines. Similarly, the guidelines for sea dike construction have increased considerably, in some cases suggesting a top-of-wall more than two times their current elevation above mean sea level.
Working with the municipality, Flanders and his colleagues at CALP have created visualizations of sea-level rise in Delta and four alternate scenarios that show different ways Delta could adapt. These were constructed using a cutting-edge 3D geovisualization process that integrates climate modeling scenarios, inundation modeling, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data, land use and urban design.
Visualizations of higher water levels in Delta portray what would happen to the community if it does nothing to prepare for climate change (Fig. 2).
“Combine the sea-level rise with bigger storms, more wind, more waves and high-tide and that’s an enormous amount of water,” says Flanders.
The four alternate scenarios show Delta over the next century where the municipality adopts various strategies to prepare for sea-level rise including: raising the dikes (“Hold The Line,” Fig. 3); building offshore barrier islands to absorb the impact of incoming storms (“Reinforce and Reclaim,” Fig 4); moving parts of the community out of the floodplain and on to higher ground (“Managed Retreat,” Fig. 5); and reducing vulnerability through design by raising homes, roads and critical infrastructure above the floodplain (“Build Up,” Fig. 6).
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 IMAGE:Visualization: The municipality of Delta adopts a strategy of raising the dikes to prepare for sea-level rise.Click here for more information. |
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The visualizations packages not only show what the region could look at the end of the century but also takes into account other important factors like the cost of each solution for the municipality, the cost to individual property owners, and the trade-offs between protecting roads, habitat, homes, waterfront views and agricultural production.
“What is becoming evident is that there is no single, perfect solution. Each alternative pathway has trade-offs associated with it, and this planning process has been very effective at communicating those trade-offs, and assessing acceptability,” says Flanders.
“Communities will have to decide what their priorities are, and likely plan for a mosaic of different solutions, because each neighbourhood has its own set of concerns and its own idea of what will be possible. This visioning process can help inform these kinds of tough decisions that many low-lying communities will have to make over the next 20, 50 and 100 years.”
To produce the visualizations, Flanders is working with other landscape planning researchers at CALP, climate scientists on the climate forecasts, coastal engineers who can calculate what water will do during a storm when it slams against the dikes, land-use planners who know current policies and how strategies could potentially roll-out on the ground, and a working group of members of the public. These participants helped to build the scenarios and assess their acceptability.
Flanders and his colleagues have begun to show these visualizations to city planners and engineers, local elected officials, and members of the community. He notes that “many individuals seeing the images for the first time had a very emotional response.”
The work borrows from international precedents, but CALP is unique in combining visualization, stakeholder input, and evaluation of results comprehensively in the Delta study.
“Other communities around the globe could gain insight from this on how to address their own local concerns, whether it’s sea level rise, forest fire risk, changing snow pack, or other issues.”
CONTACT:
David Flanders
Research Scientist, Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning
Adjunct Faculty, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Tel: 604.328.3448
Email: david.flanders@ubc.ca
Heather Amos
UBC Public Affairs
Cell: 604.828.3867
Email: heather.amos@ubc.ca
Simulated images are available by contacting Heather Amos at heather.amos@ubc.ca or 604.828.3867 (cell) and will be available for download Sunday, Feb. 19 at 1 p.m at: http://www.aaas.ubc.ca/media-resources/photos/
Photos of Flanders are available at: http://www.aaas.ubc.ca/media-resources/photos/. A video of Flanders is available at http://www.aaas.ubc.ca/media-resources/videos/ ]
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OK let’s review this statement:
“…expecting the sea-level to rise by 1.2 metres by 2100 – a change that would affect a number of waterfront homes, inland suburban developments, roads and farmland. ”
Current rate of sea level rise is 3 mm per year, as has been shown repeatedly, there’s no evidence of acceleration.
This is supported by tide gauge data, for example:
Battery Park tide gauge from NOAA:
Let’s do the math for British Columbia.
Sea level rise is 3.0 millimeters per year, per TOPEX satellite data. We have 88 years left to 2100.
88 years x 3 mm/year = 264 mm or .264 meter
1.2 meters – .264 meters = 0.936 difference, almost a whole meter.
The press release and study is simply more of this silliness without paying attention to reality:
Freaking out about NYC sea level rise is easy to do when you don’t pay attention to history
Read the whole story to see how badly these predictions fail under the slightest scrutiny
Daily tidal range at Tsawwassen is about 10 feet. I think they’ll be able to handle any modest sea level rise.
They forgot to add that the catastrophic sea level rise will get worse during full moons. /sarc.
James Sexton says:
February 20, 2012 at 1:34 pm
All show a decrease in sea level from 1981….. though Vancouver only a mm below 1981 levels. The three had their annual reading discontinued in 2009.
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Now why was that….I wonder
From what I’ve heard, it’s now averaged, smoothed, extrapolated from Tikai, which shows a slight increase in sea level /snark
Yet another piece of green mega hype.
P.s. The headline had me imagining a good portion of Belgium underwater.
“Combine the sea-level rise with bigger storms, more wind, more waves and high-tide and that’s an enormous amount of…”
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BS!
Delta, BC….Hmmmmmm, what an odd name! It’s almost like the city was named for and built on alluvial deposits at the mouth of a river! Aren’t these ‘silt deposit and brackish tidal slough’ locations historically and notoriously prone to flooding anyway????
//sarc off
When the ‘big one’ (earthquake) hits, Delta could find itself a meter above or below sea level, in less time than it took to type up this short note. That’s what they should really be preparing for….
Does anyone really believe this crap?
“Okilly-dokilly”
(or were all the Ned Flanders comments deleted?)
Posted on February 20, 2012 by Anthony Watts
Current rate of sea level rise is 3 mm per year ….
Not really :
There is a definition of a linear 2.1 mm / year sea level increase, it is NOT a hard measured fact. Nerem et al. 1997 doi: 10.1029/97GL01288. issn: 0094-8276:
„The TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter mission has measured sea level on a global basis over the last 4 years at 10 day intervals.
After correcting for a recently discovered error in the measurements, the estimated rate of global mean sea level change over this time period is -0.2 mm/year.
Comparisons to tide gauge sea levels measured in spatial and temporal proximity to the satellite measurements suggest there is a residual drift in the satellite measurement system of -2.3+-1.2 mm/year, the origin of which is presently unknown.
Application of this rate correction yields a calibrated estimate of +2.1+-1.3 mm/year for the rate of sea level rise, which agrees statistically with tide gauge observations of sea level change over the last 50 years. “
NO COMMENT
A linear fit of the present sealevel.com data gives a linear increase of about 3.2 mm/year. It would be best to subtract 2.1 mm/year this function from the 3.2 mm/year.
However I have subtract the hole 3.2 mm/year function from the data.
Results:
There are sea level oscillations which frequency is equal to the solar tide pattern of Mercury/Earth & Co.; the oscillation is also weak impressed in the GL UAH Temperature.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/sealevel_vs_xyzo.gif
http://volker-doormann.org/images/sealevel_vs_xyzo1.gif
Conclusion: Sea level is locked to solar tide functions. Sea level is not locked to the CO2 function.
V.
More damming evidence of Flander’s UBC Flounders, he’s like a fish out of water!!
Since 1981 = there has been a sight decrease in sea level – it was 31 years ago to day when Sargent Pepper taught the warmist to play……
Canadian West Coast Tidal Gauge Measurements
by suyts
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/canadian-west-coast-tidal-gauge-measurements/
This post is in response to a WUWT post Flanders fearful flooded fields. As regular readers here know, we looked at the PSMSL tidal gauges in order to see if we could determine a global sea level. Well, we couldn’t because of discontinuities and poor global coverage. But, I recalled looking at certain coastal areas and one of them was the west Canadian coast. Here are 3 tidal gauges in which the annual recordings ended in 2009. I was looking for a global sea level only going back from 1981, so, there are the measurements, in mm, from 1981 to 2009. I believe this is equates with PSMSL’s Coastal Code 822. The number in the “F1” field is the unique identifier for that particular location. I recalled having this available, so I figured I would post this with minimal effort and time. You can find more PSMSL tidal gauge information here.
NOTE: All tidal gauges started with a value of 7000mm.
Latitude says:
February 20, 2012 at 1:44 pm
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Now why was that….I wonder
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Yeh, very strange….. I’m sure everything is on the up and up……. /snark……
JinOH says:
February 20, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Does anyone really believe this crap?
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Just the same gullible, intellectually vacant, critical thinking challanged individuals who believed the HI “confidential memo” was real.
More from the “global warming causes everything” file…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/dramatic-rise-in-forest-fires-projected-for-canadas-west-due-to-warming/article2343355/
C’mon, folks, maybe read a few posts in this thread before posting….there are now several posts in this thread about natural delta subsidence and subduction-zone seismicity/land movements. OK, OK! And Flanders STILL hasn’t got the message, I’ll bet.
In a land far far away, a long time ago, but actually pretty near Delta, BC, I sat through a presentation by the senior drainage engineer for our city, to our local property owners association. I guess I am telling stories out of school, but: the first slide had the title used by the municipal government for the project – including the words ‘climate change’ – bit of a chuckle from the presenter “helps get the money if you use the right words”, laughter from the audience, and me thinking, yes, reassuring to know the professionals have their heads straight.
Lots of good comments in the posts above. The presentation did indeed note deltaic settlement, earthquake subsidence, and tsunami exposure as the immediate concerns. Sea level rise was acknowledged, treated as long term, and to be addressed as needed. In the meantime, decisions are required for conditions around building permits for new homes, and progressive enhancement of existing dykes. No one in the audience needed a ‘visualization’ to understand the presentation or the situation. The presenter did not need a ‘visualization’.
Frankly, I do not know who Dr Flanders’ new tool is intended to help.
p.s. with my own driveway at msl+4m, I am sitting pretty!
Oops, not discontinued in 2009, but rather the annual data d/c in 2010……
When I read “dykes” and “Considerable infrastructure has been built below current … high water levels” my first thought is that whoever lives BELOW the water level is an idiot and deserves to be flooded. Mother Nature has a good track record of defeating man’s attempts at thwarting her. Stop throwing away money.
The local media here is flogging the heck of the fear mongering professor’s prognostications.
Not one journalist so far has actually asked him the current rate of sea level actually happening and how it relates to the models hysterical outputs.
Probably related to the AAAS Meeting that has been happening here in Vancouver. I was downtown last Friday and walked around the Convention Center, checking out the various scheduled meetings,
Many many sessions on “Ahhhhh Climate Change, What We Should Do As Scientists So We Won’t All Die” listed.
Hansen was even in town on Sunday I heard . . . . none of my tomatoes were ripe so I stayed home.
Maybe we should relocate all climate researchers into those endangered coastal areas. There’s reason to believe they are so stupid that they won’t move away from the slowly rising water and drown in about a foot of it.
” We’re done for, we’re done-diddly done for, we’re done-diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodily, done diddly-doodly, done diddly-doodily!”
Oops sorry wrong Flanders (aka Ned)
Stupidity continues, from the unversity whose physics department is promoting “post-normal science” under the guise of educating people about climate science.
But I question all th ose who say that normal tidal range is more than a projected sea level rise. So what?
Isn’t the tidal range about the seal level? IE, if sea level rises, globally of course, then the risk of getting wet increases. And the opposite if sea level declines, as it did on the BC coast long ago for quite a while.
Subsidence is a different matter, as it is local thus even if there is no change in sea level there is a problem or benefit.
Some Pacific islands may be falling, or rising.
Local shorelines may fall or rise, as happened on a small scale in Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island BC in the late 1940s due to an earthquake – a 15 foot drop west of Youbou was not a good thing for the tribal village there.
(I don’t know why a tribal village on the west shore of Esquimalt harbour in BC was flooded long ago. I know stuff happens.)
Jay Davis says:
February 20, 2012 at 2:29 pm
When I read “dykes” and “Considerable infrastructure has been built below current … high water levels” my first thought is that whoever lives BELOW the water level is an idiot and deserves to be flooded. Mother Nature has a good track record of defeating man’s attempts at thwarting her. Stop throwing away money.
I live below sea-level, and with me several million more.
You can find the historic Vancouver sea level here. Nothing scary.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.shtml?stnid=822-071
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Excellent!
David Flanders, like a certain Stephen Sheppard from the same UBC, is among the type of freshly minted specialists who, under the smoke and mirror concept of “environmental landscaping”, are increasingly gaining undue influence in municipal politics. Stealth green candidates who managed to get elected on municipal councils without declaring their allegiance create ad hoc commissions with “concerned citizens” i.e. local activists who invite these kinds of “experts” so the conveniently assembled lobby can produce alarmist reports then sold to council.
The level of garbage found in those reports is only matched by the incompetence of those who vote for action based on them, all this at taxpayers’ expense.
Finally Flanders, and recently John Clague are ignoring the reality: the NOAA tide gauge link is clear so are, at the global level, the measurements from Envisat, the most technologically advanced altimetry satellite launched by the Europeans, showing a trend of 0.754 millimeter per year, well below the Topex, Jason rates (in fact, legitimizing Axel-Morner claims) . Should that rate remain constant, Vancouver’s shorelines would face a 6.6 cm sea level rise in 2100! Frightening, NOT!
Clague is a recent convert to this entire cinema. Perhaps the long wait for the Cascadia quake was not providing enough justification for employment…
UBC and U Vic are becoming centers of academic propaganda when it comes to climate issues. Is the GSC next?
When I hear that Netherlanders in general (not just Flanders 🙂 are getting seriously worried about rising sea level, then I’ll accept that it’s becoming a problem. Until then … not.
Here’s the “official” statement from the appropriate Canadian federal agency on the same topic:
http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/Publications/annualreport-rapportannuel/ar-ra0910/monitoring-surveillance-eng.asp
Scroll down past the salmon story. Note the map showing areas of deltaic subsidence. Historic patterns of relative sea-level (RSL) change from tide gauges (e.g. Vancouver, Tsawwassen, Cherry Point, etc.) that are located on nearby “stable” terrain need to be adjusted by 1-2 mm per year to account for the subsidence in the delta area.
For those of you who argue that coseismic deformation during the next Cascadia mega-quake may change RSL by a metre or two, and that this will dwarf any climatically driven change, note that this only applies near the plate junction (i.e. along the OUTER coast, from California to central-western Vancouver Island). There’s likely to be very little change in land elevation (and therefore in RSL) in the vicinity of the Strait of Georgia-Puget Sound.
When the water level reaches the top of the Horseshoe Bay boat launch then I will wonder whats happening. Been launching from the same area on the ramp for 55 years now depending on tides. Can get slippery at low tide. Almost launched the truck with the boat one day.