An update to what we reported here yesterday – Science vs AGW Advocacy in North Carolina, from HamptonRoads.com:
N.C. Senate approves sea level calculation bill
The North Carolina Senate has approved a bill that ignores scientists’ warnings of rising sea levels.
Senators approved the bill on a 34-to-11 35 to 12 vote Tuesday. The measure received little fanfare and no senators spoke in opposition to the measure.
The bill now goes back to the House for a vote.
HB 819 says that only the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission can calculate how fast the sea is rising for state governmental purposes and those calculations must be based on historic trends, which are much lower than the science panel’s projections.
Full story here
UPDATE: John Droz reports that the story had the vote count wrong, I’ve corrected the text. He writes:
On 6/12/12 the NC Senate voted FOR this bill 35 to 12. The NC House will vote in the next day or so.
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John Moore: “…how is it possible to tell the difference on a sea level guage whether the sea is rising or if the land is falling?”
The whole issue in NC is whether sea level is rising or falling relative to the land — the sea could go up 10m in the next century and it wouldn’t matter a bit to NC coastal communities if glacial rebound raised the coastline by the same amount (well, it might make some differences to rivers inland). Tide gauges are the perfect instrument for tracking the relative change.
Note: the lower house and governor still have to sign on. Not a victory yet!
I went and read the responses to Mr. Droz’s letter in the paper and noticed that not one of them mentioned the scientific data in question. Each of them was either an ad hominem attack on his “true agenda” or an attempt at discrediting him by association. Truly amazing and dispiriting. The intellectual equivalent of “Yer mother wears Army boots!”
@Snowsnake
Since one side of this debate has now become a full religion complete with priests, sacrifices, and tithes, it seems appropriate to mention that history is replete with examples of the consequences of choices. In those times several hundred years B. C. E.
There is no such thing as B.C.E. The period you are referring to already has a name and it is B.C.
If you identify a period in history that does not already have a name you can coin one and hope that it will catch on. Similarly if you invent something new you can give it any name you like. The calendar using BC/AD was invented by the Venerable Bede who lived from 672/673 – 26 May 735. Therefore politically correct types such as yourself are well over a thousand years too late in coining the terms BCE/CE.
This shows that reason starts to have the upper hand and trust in modelled truth evaporates.
Also per the reactions and the pressure that comes it shows this will not be an easy win to the end.
It is amazing how much garbage is the mass media producing and pouring down the throats of those who still have the bad habit to listen to them and how many people still believe in this …
How much would you be willing to pay for a computer game? Just make it clear to the voters how much the CAGW computer game will cost them and they’ll start to pay attention.
Wonderful! A few more level heads out there. North Carolina can stand proud. This will spread. Everywhere people are waking up. It might seem small so far, pollicy makers and others still blinking their eyes and getting the sleep out, but waking up they are. It is going to be a glorious day.
They can always bring in a new law when the sea level rise increases to 4 times what it is now.
Bill Illis says:
They can always bring in a new law when the sea level rise increases to 4 times what it is now.
Why would they need to? If SLR rate INCREASED, then the historical data would SHOW the rate increase and support the conclusion that the rate WILL increase. A law that says to look at empirical data wouldn’t negate that.
@Peter Crawford “Is that scientific enough ? ”
Eh, no. Is that clear enough?
Don’t get me wrong, observations are good. But it’s not science. One way of being scientific would be to see how your observations compare to other observations. It’s called looking at the big picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOAA_sea_level_trend_1993_2010.png
So yeah, there’s no sea level rise between Holyhead and Dublin, but that observation gives you no insight in to how sea levels are changing elsewhere.
Looks like Virginia is also a place where some folks are trying to be a little more realistic regarding sea levels.
Bill, that would be pointless. But don’t worry because sea levels are not rising. I will let you know if they do. At the inner harbour here in Holyhead they have callibrated oceanometric gauges, otherwise known as “sticks”. The one near the end of the Holyhead breakwater (built in 1840) shows no sign of being deluged. I will keep an eye out.
George E Smith:
Case 1: What if the land that moves is thousands of miles away, but it creates a hole into which more sea water flows, so it lowers the sea level elsewhere;
Case 2: or raises it for that matter.
I bet Archimedes could address Case 2 for you.
: > )
This is a repeat attempt (to embed the appropriate links)
tomwys said at:June 13, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Re: John Moore June 13, 2012 at 7:36am
I have tried some years ago to find out from the Met Office how is it possible to tell the difference on a sea level gauge whether the sea is rising or if the land is falling? Does Anthony or anyone know?
Don K gave some good advice at June 13th, 8:27AM.
To those interested in some more detail, go to an excellent British Oceanographic Service website:
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/
There you can find Tide gauges by location, worldwide, and you can compare contiguous areas.
Here’s one way to go about it: Look up: Cape Cod MA (775), Boston MA (235), Portsmouth NH (Seavey Island)(288), and Rockland ME (1279). The Cape (south of Boston) and NH and ME (both to Boston’s north) are basically in a diminutively rising flatline, while Boston shows a 30 year slowly rising increase, coinciding almost precisely with its downtown building boom with new skyscrapers cropping up like weeds, and constructed on not too solid partial bedrock mixed with land fill. So Boston actually shows land slowly sinking vs steadier regional land movement in both directions away from the city.
To see the Glacial Isostatic (GI) effect, check out:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/MSL_global_trendtable.html
The negative Norwegian and Finland numbers, indicate land rise, as opposed to positive numbers which indicate either rising seas or if the numbers are positive on the larger side, sinking landmass: e.g Lusi China, Legaspi, Philippines, or the winner, Kushiro, Japan. Unlike the “fictional” GIA, which University of Colorado “adjusts” and attributes to the entire globe (contributing not one whit to actual Sea-Level rise), the local effects are real and measurable.
Roy,
“There is no such thing as B.C.E. The period you are referring to already has a name and it is B.C.
If you identify a period in history that does not already have a name you can coin one and hope that it will catch on. Similarly if you invent something new you can give it any name you like. The calendar using BC/AD was invented by the Venerable Bede who lived from 672/673 – 26 May 735. Therefore politically correct types such as yourself are well over a thousand years too late in coining the terms BCE/CE.”
I actually agree with you. Every time I use BC/AD I get nasty comments. I decided to alternate. Give everybody a shot. I guess one should just go with the years ago phrase and say 2612 years ago for 600 years BC or about. (By the way, calling me politically correct is pretty comical–I am many things but not politically correct!) I just decided to try to communicate–you did understand me–and not sweat the jargon, argot, and code. Historians, religious people, chemists, biologists,
hairdressers, and people who castrate sheep all have their special terms that they use in their field. If we want to communicate with each other we need to give each other a little slack.
The NC CRC’s Science Panel & scientists:
– Used the Least Reliable Tide Gauge Data in NC.
– Used Obsolete Reports
– Used only One-sided Sea Level Rise reports
– Used only One-sided Global Warming reports,
– Admitted they did no science, only a “Literature Search”.
– No 4 miles inundation of NC Tidelands over 150 years is visible .
– Ignored US Coast Survey , and US Fish Services Tide Gauge Data 1850 1950.
– Said, ‘What’s the Big Deal, Let’s wait 5 Years and see what happens.’
– Confuse Erosion due to dredging, winds, waves and currents with inundation.
– Have not answered questions about the above concerns.
Thankfully, it looks like NC Legislators want verifiable Science
upon which to base multi billion dollar public policy decisions that
could harm tens of thousands of local, taxpaying property owners.
This is serious business, and it’s good NC doesn’t base decisions on
a comedy skit.
Bill Price Pine Knoll Shores
PS: It might be helpful to urge the Science Panel to participate in an
Open Public Forum to answer above and other questions about their science.
So far they have declined.
This is old, but evidently still relevant. From The News Hour, May 19, 2009:
HEIDI CULLEN: …Laura Devendorf lives on the coast, some 40 miles south of Savannah. She’s starting to see change, too.
LAURA DEVENDORF, Sunbury, Georgia: We’re worried about sea level rise, indeed. I think everyone on the coast is. You can just sit there and see the tides getting bigger.
NOAA reports the following from the Ft Pulaski gauging station:
The mean sea level trend is 2.98 mm/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.33 mm/year based on monthly mean sea level data from 1935 to 2006 which is equivalent to a change of 0.98 feet in 100 years.
Laura has remarkable eyesight.
Of course she can see the tides getting bigger! Twice per day.
Guess what! They fall that often too!!!
Can we outlaw models for making a weather forecast too? Using recent historical trends will surely make a better forecast.
It has often been said to me by anonymous online commenters (never by pro mariners in person) that isostatic shift is to blame for “hiding” the rise in sea levels.
This seems unlikely. The Island I live on is Anglesey, off the coast of Wales, UK. It has a very unusual geology for such a small island being composed of at least four plates : The Gwna group, skerries group, new harbour group, Holy Island group. Llanddwyn Island is another plate.
The idea that all these different plates act in concert to mask sea level rise does not pass muster. It is a big Occam’s Razor fail. Sea levels off the coast of Wales are NOT rising
Let’s not get all excited about what the NC “legislature” has done. In fact only the Senate has passed a very moderate bill which will certainly be dismantled and reconstructed before (if) it is ever passed by the House and signed by the lame-duck governor. The leading light of the 11 who voted against this bill in the Senate was one Martin Nesbitt, Democrat, Buncombe County, Majority Leader of the Senate. He represents Asheville, home of NOAA and Trenberth and he seemed, according to some of his reported remarks, to be more concerned that Colbert might make the state a laughing-stock, than he was about the effect the bill might have on the state’s economy. No doubt the science is a bit tedious for him as he is a Juris Doctor and a hereditary legislator.
This is somewhat alarming. Can you seriously be expected to extrapolate from historical data when the consensus of the real experts have been saying for years that the multi-billion dollar computer models have being proclaiming for two decades that the sea level rise is on the verge of accelerating? Hope you live in a two story house, because one morning you are going to wake up and the 1st floor (ground floor in the UK) will be flooded 6ft deep.
I have proof of this. In 2005, some of the worlds best experts on various potential tipping points got together and agreed that science was being too stringent in the potential threats that global warming could cause. After suitable humming and medication (or was that meditation), aided by a few glasses of Dom Perignon ’64 at the British Embassy in Berlin, it was realised that that collective the expertise on the possibility of tipping points, was much more alarming than the sum of the individual parts – the such as collapse of the Amazon rain forest, or the sudden melting of the Arctic Ice sheets. The result was a widely-acclaimed peer reviewed paper, which was widely
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786.full.pdf
PS, I would be able to better it. You can save the flight, but a case of quality champers or claret would certainly improve the result.
http://www.manicbeancounter.com
Proof the influence tha tonce man can have. John Droz saved the taxpayers millions and millions of dollars.
About time someone used common sense. Chao, Yu, and Li reported in the 11th April Science of 2008 that the sea level rise had been linear for more than 80 years and that the slope of sea level rise curve for that entire period was 2.46 mm per year. For a century that works out 24.6 cm, just under 10 inches. This was real science available at a time when Al Gore imagining a twenty foot sea level rise and Florida under water. Their sea level figure used extensive published sea level measurements and also corrected for water held in storage by all dams built since the year 1900. They found this correction to be essential for without it a linear sea level curve could not be obtained. Nowadays we have satellite measurements that show short-term changes that are not well explained. I would stay with Chao, Yu and Li and North Carolina would be smart to do. Anything that has been linear as long as they observed it is not likely to change anytime soon.
Bill says:
June 13, 2012 at 2:54 pm
Can we outlaw models for making a weather forecast too? Using recent historical trends will surely make a better forecast.
===============================================================
I might be wrong, but the the weather forecasting models DO use recent information to make forecast. And, in case you didn’t notice, the further out they forecast less accurate they are. Only a fool would think a weather forecast can be made out to 100 years for any location let alone every location on the globe.
Someone’s going to say, “Climate isn’t weather! We’re not talking about the weather in one place! We’re talking about global climate!” You’re talking all all the weather in all the places on the globe for 100 years. That’s supposed to make it easier to believe in the CAGW forecast?
Slightly off this specific topic, but I remember many months ago reading something about the SLR measurements being padded. I think it something to do with about a fingernail’s width being added each year to the actual measurement. The excuse given had something to do with compensating for the land springing back after the ice age. Does anybody else remember that?