From the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, a claim of 2 feet by 2050, but tide gauge data from Annapolis doesn’t support it, showing it will take well over 100 years at the historic rate to reach 2 feet, and there is no hint of acceleration in the record:
Source: NOAA Tides and Currents
Sea level along Maryland’s shorelines could rise 2 feet by 2050, according to new report
ANNAPOLIS, MD (June 26, 2013)—A new report on sea level rise recommends that the State of Maryland should plan for a rise in sea level of as much as 2 feet by 2050. Led by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the report was prepared by a panel of scientific experts in response to Governor Martin O’Malley’s Executive Order on Climate Change and “Coast Smart” Construction. The projections are based on an assessment of the latest climate change science and federal guidelines.
“The State of Maryland is committed to taking the necessary actions to adapt to the rising sea and guard against the impacts of extreme storms,” said Governor Martin O’Malley. “In doing so, we must stay abreast of the latest climate science to ensure that we have a sound understanding of our vulnerability and are making informed decisions about how best to protect our land, infrastructure, and most importantly, the citizens of Maryland.”
The independent, scientific report recommends that is it is prudent to plan for sea level to be 2.1 feet higher in 2050 along Maryland’s shorelines than it was in 2000 in order to accommodate the high end of the range of the panel’s projections. Maryland has 3,100 miles of tidal shoreline and low-lying rural and urban lands that will be impacted. The experts’ best estimate for the amount of sea level rise in 2050 is 1.4 feet. It is unlikely to be less than 0.9 feet or greater than 2.1 feet. Their best estimate for sea level rise by 2100 is 3.7 feet. They concluded that it is unlikely to be less than 2.1 feet or more than 5.7 feet based on current scientific understanding.
“This reassessment narrows the probable range of sea level rise based on the latest science,” said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and chair of the group of experts that assembled the report. “It provides the State with sea level rise projections based on best scientific understanding to ensure that infrastructure is sited and designed in a manner that will avoid or minimize future loss or damage.”
These estimates were made based on the various contributors to sea level rise: thermal expansion of ocean volume as a result of warming, the melting of glaciers and Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, changing ocean dynamics such as the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and vertical land movement.
“While there is little we can do now to reduce the amount of sea level rise by the middle of the century, steps taken over the next 30 years to control greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize global temperatures will largely determine how great the sea level rise challenge will be for coastal residents at the end of this century and beyond,” said Dr. Boesch.
According to Joseph P. Gill, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, impacts associated with sea level rise are already being seen along Maryland’s coast, such as the documented loss of islands within the Chesapeake Bay, as well as visible changes to wetland habitats all along Maryland’s low-lying eastern shore.
“Recognizing the importance of building resilience within our natural and built environments,” said Gill, “DNR’s CoastSmart Communities Program is dedicated to offering on-the-ground expertise, planning guidance, training, tools, and financial assistance to help others in state plan, prepare, and adapt.” For more information on CoastSmart, visit http://dnr.maryland.gov/CoastSmart/.
Governor O’Malley established the Maryland Commission on Climate Change on April 20, 2007. The Commission produced a Plan of Action that included a comprehensive climate change impact assessment, a greenhouse gas reduction strategy, and actions for reducing Maryland’s vulnerability to climate change. On December 28, 2012, Governor O’Malley issued an executive order that requires State agencies to consider the risk of coastal flooding and sea level rise to capital projects.
The 21-member panel comprised of sea level rise experts from the Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, reviewed projections from Maryland’s 2008 Climate Action Plan and provided updated recommendations based on new scientific results that can better inform projections of sea level rise for Maryland.
The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is updating Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) for communities in Maryland. The revised maps are the first update in the coastal areas of Maryland in 25 years and confirm both increases and decreases in the 100-year flood elevations over this period of time.
“MDE is working with seventeen Maryland coastal communities to go through the mapping process, which requires the communities to update their local floodplain management ordinances before the revised maps become effective,” said Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Robert M. Summers. “Many communities choose to better prepare themselves by adopting higher freeboard elevations or additional safety requirements for new or substantially improved structures, which could lead to reductions in flood insurance.”
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Sheesh! SLR, again? No problem here, http://emsworthonline.co.uk/, for HUNDREDS OF YEARS!!! In the bottom picture, with the buildings and lights, in the centre of the picture are some lights. That’s the main road down to the bay. When the tide is out you can drive a ROAD all along to the right, around the bay. I have driven this tide in, tide out. I admit, tide in, was in a Land Rover.
Reviewing the NOAA website provided for dozens of sites around the world, makes you wonder how, given the trendlines for sometimes over 100 years, one can conclude sea levels are rising any faster now than decades ago. As an example, the sea level for Key West has been rising since 1910 at 9 inches per century. No acceleration in sight.
These people who claim a major acceleration, and major it would have to be, some 3-4% per years, have no clue what that physically means. In the last year of their claim, the rate of sea level rise would have to be centimeters per year, more than ten times today’s rate. It’s gets even worse for them in just a few short years later when the year rate would become tens of centimeters per year. These people clearly have no grasp of what compound growth (acceleration) means. Do they honestly think all the world’s ice would melt that fast?
“philjourdan says:
June 27, 2013 at 5:11 am”
We’ve just had a “super moon”, well it’s sort of normal for this time of year. And in Aus, high seas, high tides, coastal erosion etc in the MSM are highlighted, with a slight hint, almost silent in fact, to the lunar phase.
FerdinandAkin says:
June 27, 2013 at 5:40 am
We first noticed that sea level was rising about 22,000 years ago. It has been rising ever since. If it keeps up at this rate, the whole coastline will be under water.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
——-
Coastlines dont become underwater, they just move inland. Coast line is where the land meets the water.
(ALL) news reports of climate change, everyone of them, include some form of speculation…
“Could” “likely to” “maybe” “possibly” and many more similar terms are used exclusively by the (global warmongers) to convince the public that the end is near.
Bill Illis says:
June 27, 2013 at 5:05 am
GPS receivers in the area shows that the region is generally sinking due to glacial isostatic rebound (glacial forebulge sinking that is).
———
I think you have that backwards. Glacial rebound means the land it rising, not sinking. Very clear in Hudsons Bay. Indeed the entire east coast of the US has sea level rise almost twice the global average of 1.74mm/year. Some tectonics must account for this.
“jrwakefield says:
June 27, 2013 at 6:48 am”
Glacial “rebound”? IMO a better term to use is “settling”. As a plate/crust on a fluid “body” “adjusts” to compensate for load changes.
Dunno where are those charts from. Whole Atlantic sea level stagnates as is.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/l103a.png
Crabs, oysters disappearing in Maryland’s shrinking island
June 26, 2013 7:26 PM
By Chip Reid
…
In the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, Smith Island is reachable only by boat.
CBS News has been documenting life here since 1965. Oysters and crabs were thriving, and the population was about 850.
…
By 1999, it was down to 350. Crabs and oysters were suffering due to pollution and the island itself was washing away.
…
Scientists at the University of Maryland say the water level is rising in part because of climate change and that the island could disappear in 20 to 50 years.
…
Isn’t this one of those sandbar-type islands that, on geological timescales, comes and goes in a eyeblink and should never be considered permanent?
By “suffering due to pollution”, does “overfishing” now mean “pollution”?
I like how they tactfully said “rising in part because of climate change”. How much is that part?
If there’s an improbable 2 foot rise at Annapolis by 2050, that’d roughly be another foot in the Bay in 20 years. So at the short end of the time range, just one more foot in two decades will destroy this island?
If it’s that precarious, they better get those people evacuated now before a hurricane dumps enough water to wash all of it into the Bay! Preemptive Federal Disaster Declaration, NOW!
jrwakefield:
As I understand it from a plate tectonics course years ago, when the glaciers weighed down the northern portion of the plate, the southern portion was elevated like the child on the other side of the seesaw. When the glaciers melted and the “isostatic rebound” started, the northern part of the plate rises, but the southern part returns to its lower starting point at pretty much the same rate (as related to the fulcrum point of the tilt.) It is possible for the Earth to bulge at a place other than the plate the glacier is on, but fluid dynamics pretty much dictates it will be nearby. The viscous liquid that is magma isn’t very compressible so it will push back at the nearest light weight point to relieve the pressure strain.
jrwakefield says:
June 27, 2013 at 6:48 am
———————-
The ice age glaciers pushed the crust down where the glaciers were, but on the edges out to 1000 kms, the land is actually pushed up (as in a bulge). When the weight of the glaciers is removed, the area within the glacial margins rebounds back up and the areas outside which were pushed up, now relax and sink back to normal position
http://www.unavco.org/community_science/science-apps/solid-earth/glacial-isostatic-adjustment.html
http://www.earth.northwestern.edu/people/seth/Texts/gpsgia.pdf
jrwakefield … 6:41 am
These people who claim a major acceleration, and major it would have to be, some 3-4% per years, have no clue what that physically means. In the last year of their claim, the rate of sea level rise would have to be centimeters per year, more than ten times today’s rate. It’s gets even worse for them in just a few short years later when the year rate would become tens of centimeters per year. These people clearly have no grasp of what compound growth (acceleration) means. Do they honestly think all the world’s ice would melt that fast?
Dr. James Hansen has notoriously claimed that 5 meters by 2100 is possible.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
He uses a doubling every ten years scenario to get there. If you run the numbers on that it means that by December 2099 sea level would have to be going up a millimeter per DAY. Over one hundred times today’s rate.
Yes, J.R. Wakefield is exactly right.
Owen in GA & Bill Illis, thanks, interesting. I had read a paper long ago that the Pacific Plate moving into the NA plate is doing the same on the east coast.
Okay, let’s do the math. Current trend says 1.13 feet by 2113. “Experts” say
3.7 feet by 2100.
With this estimate, they’re even worse than the climate modelers predicting +0.2 deg.
C. per decade when even counting back to 1980 the trend was barely more than 1/2
that, and in the most recent 15-year period has completely stalled.
British warships, invading the Chesapeake Bay in 1813 (during the War of 1812), sheltered behind Sharp’s Island. Much detail from that period is embodied in the ships’ logs, which include descriptions of how the trees along the shoreline of Sharp’s Island were collapsing into the Bay as a result of rapid erosion of the island. The British fleet not only took over the island, expropriating the livestock (for which the farmer was apparently well compensated), but established a semi-permanent shore base in what is now the Fairbank community of Tilghman Island. This base was used for providing meat and other provisions to the fleet for about a year.
Sharp’s Island has now completely disappeared, (mostly in the 19th century), as has about 200 acres of what constituted the Southwest corner of Tilghman Island 200 years ago. (Other disappeared Chesapeake Islands have been reconstituted as dredge-spoil dumps).
According to geologists, the continuing rise in apparent sea-level in the Chesapeake is attributed in part to continuing settling of the silt-banks (from an earlier geological era) upon which much of Delmarva and the Tidewater area land sits. This is somewhat different from the factors (isostatic rebound and tectonic subduction) affecting land movement in many other parts of the world.
Continued loss of coastline, due to sea-level rise, is noticeable today in many parts of Chesapeake Bay, certainly including Smith Island. Interestingly, it does not seem to be happening at such a rapid rate as was reported by the British sailors 200 years ago. [This posting is being written just a couple hundred yards from the 1813 Tighman base area].
Bill Illis says:
June 27, 2013 at 7:35 am
jrwakefield says:
June 27, 2013 at 6:48 am
———————-
“The ice age glaciers pushed the crust down where the glaciers were, but on the edges out to 1000 kms, the land is actually pushed up (as in a bulge). When the weight of the glaciers is removed, the area within the glacial margins rebounds back up and the areas outside which were pushed up, now relax and sink back to normal position”
One posible proof of the above?
http://www.villagenet.co.uk/history/0000-romneymarsh.php
The generally accepted value for global sea level rise for the 20th century derived from tide gauges is about 1.8 mm/year. The satellite data says about 3 mm/year for the last 20 years. If these values are both true, then the tide gauge data should show a large acceleration in sea level rise rates sometime near the end of the 20th century.
Looking for such an acceleration is like looking for a needle in a haystack, because at most locations the yearly fluctuations in the sea level are on the order of the entire sea level rise for the 20th century – often even greater. Similarly, there are local geological effects that swamp any global signal.
I have started a series of posts where I am making a concerted effort to find a sea level rise acceleration in the tide gauge data that will reconcile the difference between the 1.8 mm/year 20th century tide gauge data and the 3 mm/year satellite data. This effort consists of selecting tide gauge data that meets certian quality standards in areas with similar regional fluctuations, removing the yearly signals, detrending to remove local signals (as opposed to regional signals), averaging to enhance regional signals, and looking at the derivative to find accelerations. This method will not determine actual sea level rise rates (but rather “detrended” rise rates), but will illustrate accelerations.
Parts 1, 2, & 3 can be found here…
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/the-search-for-acceleration-part-1/
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/the-search-for-acceleration-part-2-east-coast-of-north-america/
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/the-search-for-acceleration-part-3-japan/
Data covering a new region will be added every few days.
The press report released describing the study is not inaccurate. It just picks the top value within the 95% interval level contained in the report. So what? Its not inaccurate in its statement. And if plans are made for “up to 2 feet” and it doesn’t happen in that time frame – but a few years later – isn’t that a good thing? Otherwise, we would be castigating the government because “they had this information and did nothing about it”.
jrwakefield says:
June 27, 2013 at 6:44 am
Coastlines dont become underwater, they just move inland. Coast line is where the land meets the water
Oh, I could tell you why The ocean’s near the shore.
I could think of things I never thunk before.
And then I’d sit and think some more.
-The Scarecrow
tommoriarty says:
June 27, 2013 at 8:03 am
“Data covering a new region will be added every few days.”
May I suggest to you that using a 4 year ‘Normal’ rather than a Yearly one to reduce the data spread may reveal patterns to you that otherwise you will ‘fold’ away?
philjourdan says: 2 Feet? Yea, during the next full moon high tide.
That is exactly what sea defences are supposed to be designed for : worst case senario.
If an intervention is necessary to raise sea defences by 1ft, you might as well make it 2ft while you’re. there. It’s bearly going to cost any more and will protect against the _real_ rise, whatever it is, for twice as long.
Since they have a GIA drop to account for as well, it seems there figure are not ‘alarism’ but trying to properly account for highest likely extremes.
Anyone reading this as a projection of 2ft of average sea rise is not paying attention.
If they had properly planned south of NY there would have been no massive flooding when Sandy conicided with a predictable exceptional high tide.
If New Orleans levvies had been properly maintained there would not have been a national emergency with horrendous loss of life.
If they had not ignored the possibility of a 10m tsunami when it was pointed out they would not have had a world class pollution problem to deal with at Fukupshima.
Seems there was a change in measurement method around 1970. Then subsequent splicing. In any case, when discussing “sea level” measurements at the Passive Margin (e.g. most Atlantic coastal areas in North America and Europe) there needs to be a disclaimer. The term Passive Margin may conjure a notion of no tectonic effect. That is false. Although there are no plate boundaries nearby, the crust is subsiding at a Passive Margin.
Re: the sinking islands of the Chesapeake…
As with most things environmental, it is poverty and wealth that determine the likelihood of a Chesapeake island eroding away. Look at the wealthy Gibson Island, and you will find that there has been almost no land loss over the last 100 years. The waterman-occupied, (i.e. poor), islands haven’t the resources to armor the shoreline. (This book, for one, documents this point: http://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Islands-Chesapeake-William-Cronin/dp/0801874351 )
Do not be fooled by the current fad of “living shorelines”; (i.e. created wetlands). Any shore that is not hard armor is living on borrowed time.
You could probably slow the rate of ‘sea level rise, in the Annapolis district by banning the extraction of water from soft sediments. That might be a lot cheaper than a massive sea defence scheme.d
The problem with these sort of investigations is they quickly turn into a feeding trough for expensive bureaucrats and ‘experts’.