An examination of the data suggests “quite possibly”.
You can read the press release from the Senator’s office here.
From CNS News video:
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) warns sports stadiums are at risk from the “sea level rise effects of climate change,” and that climate change specifically threatens hockey and skiing.
“We see significant sports facilities, the palaces of – of sport that are at risk from the storm, climate, sea-level rise effects of climate change,” Sen. Whitehouse said today following a closed-door climate discussion with executives from the NFL, NHL and NBA.
Hockey and skiing aside (which we’ll look at later), let’s check some stadiums and sea level, shall we? We’ll start with the largest stadium in Rhode Island, Brown Stadium, located under a mile from the water in the flatlands of East Providence:
The nearest NOAA tide gauge is not far south of the stadium, about 2.4 miles, and according to NOAA, it was established in 1938. Brown Stadium was built in 1925, so it should give us a good indication of the threat. Note the old piers in the photo:
And here is the sea level trend calculated by NOAA for the Providence tide gauge:
NOAA’s calculated rate is 0.64 feet per 100 years. Brown Stadium is about 110 feet above sea level according to Google Earth, so the calculation becomes:
110 feet / 0.0064 feet per year =17187.5 years
17,000 years! Hardly a problem for the present and it may not even be a problem for the future, as I sincerely doubt the stadium will last that long. We may be in a new ice age by then.
Let’s look at some others near his sphere of influence. How about the New York Giants stadium in the Meadowlands? Giants Stadium was demolished in 2010 and replaced by MetLife Stadium, located adjacent to its former site. Built in 1976, it only lasted just over 3 decades. It is about 2/3 of a mile from the nearest ocean linked waterway. According to Google Earth, it is about 10 feet above MSL, a fact that apparently didn’t concern the architects, backers, and owners of the new stadium.
The nearest tide gauge is The Battery, in New York City:
With MetLife Stadium being about 10 feet above MSL, the calculation becomes:
10 feet/.0091 feet per year = 1098.90 years
I’m willing to bet a new stadium will be built well before then wouldn’t you?
OK, How about Boston? Fenway Park isn’t far from the water, approximately 1/4 mile from the Charles River Basin and just across from MIT. Like the former Giants Stadium, it is a mere 10 feet above MSL.
The nearest NOAA tide gauge in Boston is located on the right side of the U.S. Coast Guard Building adjacent to Northern Avenue Bridge (now closed), about 2.3 miles from Fenway Park, which opened in 1912.
With Fenway Park at 10 feet AMSL, a rate of 0.86 feet/100 years the calculation becomes:
10 feet/0.0086 feet/year = 1162.79 years
Like Giants stadium, will Fenway park even be around then? Will it be around in 100 years or will it go the way of many older baseball parks, demolished and relocated/rebuilt to handle bigger crowds?
Climate alarmists often say that low lying Florida will be greatly affected by climate change induced sea level rise, and Miami will be underwater soon. So let’s try a sports stadium in Miami.
Sun Life Stadium in Miami (built 1987) hosts the Miami Dolphins, Miami Hurricanes football, annual Orange Bowl, and BCS National Championship Game every fourth year. Losing it to the sea would be a big deal. It is about 7.5 miles from the Atlantic ocean and about 6 feet above MSL according to Google Earth:
The nearest tide gauge is in Miami Beach about 13.5 miles away:
Unfortunately, the station was removed in 1981 after 50 years of service. I suppose sea level rise wasn’t a big concern or they would have kept it. The rate up until then wasn’t much different that the other tide gauges we’ve examined at 0.78 feet per 100 years. The nearest working gauge to Miami Beach is Naples, Fl, showing only 0.66 feet per 100 years.
With the Orange Bowl being 6 feet AMSL, the calculation becomes:
6 feet/ 0.0078 feet/year = 769.23 years.
Will we even have an Orange Bowl Game then? Who knows?
While Senator Whitehouse is from the east coast, maybe we’ve concentrated on the east coast too much. Let’s try the Gulf of Mexico. Surely the Mercedes-Benz Superdome stadium (built in 1975) in low lying New Orleans is threatened soon?
Notable is this entry in Wikipedia:
The Superdome was used as a “shelter of last resort” for those in New Orleans unable to evacuate from Hurricane Katrina when it struck in late August 2005.
Located about 1 mile from the Mississippi River, Google Earth pegs its elevation around 1-3 feet AMSL.
The nearest NOAA tide gauge is south of New Orleans, about 50 miles at Grand Isle, and is directly on the Gulf of Mexico. It has quite an astounding rate of sea level rise of 3.03 feet in 100 years.
With the Superdome being as low as 1 foot above MSL, the calculation becomes:
1 foot/0.0303 feet per year = 33.00 years
Some of us, though probably not Senator Whitehouse, will be around to see that. I have to wonder though why he isn’t calling for an abandonment/evacuation of the city or New Orleans, since many of the wards are below sea level now. Oh wait, that’s right, they’ve adapted to the subsidence that plagues the city, something they’ve know about for quite some time.
Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6623
Maybe sea level is threatening west coast sports stadiums?
San Francisco is often depicted as being underwater, as evidenced by an alarm raised by The former Governator of California:
The map Schwarzenegger is pointing to comes from BCDC, and is shown below:
San Francisco’s new AT&T Park built in 2000, right on the bay, surely is threatened. It is located in one of the blue zones of the map above, just SW of the Bay Bridge.
The SFO tide gauge is located about 5 miles northwest, near Fort Point and has a long record:
According to Google Earth. AT&T park is about 9-10 feet above MSL.
The calculation becomes:
9 feet/ 0.0066 feet/year = 1363.63 years
It is more likely that San Francisco and the new stadium will devastated by an earthquake before then. And, chances are that A&T park won’t have much more of a lifetime than many of the others we’ve touched on in this article.
Maybe Senator Whitehouse was talking about Seattle. Yeah, that’s the ticket. CenturyLink Field (home to the SeaHawks) and the nearby Safeco Field (home to the Mariners) are right off the wharf, and less than 1/2 mile from Puget Sound.
Google Earth places their elevation at 17 feet above MSL a twofer double threat in the eyes of Senator Whitehouse I’m sure. The nearest NOAA tide gauge at Seattle just 1/2 mile northwest of the stadium at Colman Dock, has a calculated trend of 0.68 feet in 100 years.
The calculation becomes:
17 feet/ 0.0068 feet per year = 2500 years
Drats. Surely there must be a sports stadium somewhere in the USA that is threatened in the near future by sea level rise, so that closed door meetings with sports franchises with the highly distinguished senator from Rhode Island can make his sales pitch factual?
The facts suggest Senator Whitehouse doesn’t even fit the definition of useful idiot.
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References:
List of U.S. stadiums by capacity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._stadiums_by_capacity
NOAA Tides and Currents http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
God, I thought we had some stupid, inept politicians in the UK but even we can’t compete with this level of stupidity.
Ahhh here it is from 2011.
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Bombshell conclusion – new peer reviewed analysis: “worldwide-temperature increase has not produced acceleration of global sea level over the past 100 years”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/28/bombshell-conclusion-new-peer-reviewed-analysis-worldwide-temperature-increase-has-not-produced-acceleration-of-global-sea-level-over-the-past-100-years/
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It’s worse than I could ever have imagined. I’m sure that the promised acceleration is in the pipeline of deceleration. We must act now!!!!
James from Arding says:
November 24, 2013 at 1:52 pm “This reminds me of the Roman Empire and their conquest of tribes. As they subdued the populace they subsumed the local religious beliefs into their own practices. Here we have the Climate Priests subsuming the Sport Gods into their panoply of belief, dogma and practice! When do we get to sacrifice the virgins?
Wait…. there are no more virgins :-). /sarc”
I do sometimes believe we are already in competition with the most corrupt and ridiculous Roman Emporers as power becomes more centralized (EU) and World Empire (“United Nations”) activists become more privileged and debauched.
It was the Emporer Caligula who declared war on Poseidon, god of the sea – not unlike President Obama’s declaration of war on a trace gas in the atmosphere, and campaign pledges to heal the earth and lower the rising seas.
Caligula’s attack on Poseidon – Horrible Histories (my daughter loves this show); ends at 3:08.
Well if these dire predictions are true, some existing beach volleyball nets are going to be in trouble.
His children might never know what snow is or why people skied down mountains.
http://www.skitaos.org/webcams
The subsiding of the delta at my home town of New Orleans, and points south, has been known for maybe 50 or 60 years. And it was primarily ANTHROPOGENIC causes!!! Gasp!! Not climate change but physical structures and such we humans built in the name of flood control.
For eons the river deposited silt and the delta grew, Then we decided to build levees and divert the river thru another basin west and so forth.
The Superdome is doing fine, and will do fine for a long time. I would be more worried about New York. Just visit the “SLOSH” models for storm surge. The superstorm up there was nothing like it could have been.
I would be more worried about the ski resorts that have too much snow and the floods that we saw in Colorado this summer when I was there.
What a bunch of crock to advance some political agenda or satisfy alarmists threatenting no withdraw donations or……
I see a very concerned Arnold Schwarzenegger. Why is Schwarzenegger concerned? Is it because of his many, many, many CARS?!!!!! Surely not.
Is it because of his FORMER humble abode? [When he lived there he talked of co2 and global warming!!!!!!!!!!]
There are perhaps a few more things I could add for old Arny but I think I will let him chill. I might be back. 🙂
We the people should be scared. But not about global warming and sports stadiums under water.
We need to be scared (and outraged) at the stupidity of certain political leaders. It’s truly frightening.
A useful idiot should at least speak SOME truth. Sadly, the Senator does not make the cut.
On a related topic, I remember there was a You Tube video showing an endless stream of Democrats railing in their finest Viner manner about “kids won’t know what winter/snow/cold is anymore”.
Unfortunately, my bookmark now goes to a “video pulled because of copyright” message.
Since most of the videos were from the US Congress, that seems kind of curious.
Anyone know if something similar has been posted again?
Well, at least this genius is still on full display.
The man is a steaming f***, he is so stupid he could lead the Tasmanian Greens.
Brilliant!
Oh and I’m not sure if it’s the same in the US , most buildings in the UK have a theoretical design life of sixty years.
The best con is a con where the mark does not know he has been conned.( the sting),if you do not
Know you have been conned you will not retaliate. Perfect.
He’s the perfect politician!
Representing the people, emphasizing the most crucial priorities and handling those crises most urgent in the minds of his constituents.
A man who is really ‘in touch’ w/ the average citizen!
Ten more of him and Congress can go skiing all year long!
Can we just collect all the missing village idiots into one fancy building, give them desks with their names on them with a little lamp on the corner, and let them play? Oh wait…
Here is the good senator’s website on the good global warming religion. It’s worse than we thought!
http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/photos/gallery/religious-leaders-and-faith-based-orgs-on-climate-change
It’s much, much worse than I previously thought!
Pamela Gray @ur momisugly 4-44 lol
Ed markey is a complete fool. The thunder, the heat ,the hurricanes? Couldn’t find a team
Named the [tornadoes]?
Why not mention the Patriots
They are in your home state? Patriot never comes to mind if you are the benedict arnold
Of your time. It is worse than we thought.
Gunga Din says:
November 24, 2013 at 1:54 pm
(But who knows? Maybe the Miami Dolphins could play well under water.)
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……….. well, the Raiders could surely play better if they had their pirate ship back.
Ric Werme says:
November 24, 2013 at 2:14 pm
1. Have a look using Google Earth and these coordinates:
47.283883, -122.185625
Zoom out for a regional view of the White River and its change in direction here. It is coming from the northeast side of Mt. Rainier. There is a ridge to the north and east between this change in direction and the smaller Green River with its origin well north of the volcano. The drainages are well separated until they both get to Auburn. The wiki entry for the Green River explains the history from Auburn on to the Sound for both rivers. The wiki entry for the White River explains its source as the Emmons Glacier (& the West Fork at Winthrop Glacier).
2. There are numerous faults in the Puget Sound region but the big event will be when the subduction zone releases. The resulting tsunami will be mostly a coastal event to the more sparsely populated west. The “Orphan Tsunami of 1700” (of Japan) is a USGS publication on the web. More on the current research is found on the PANGA at CWU site.
Sheldon Whitehouse is the guy who stands up in the Senate, every week, for a 15 minute rant during which he rails against Republicans for denying the theory of AGW. He’s the one who condemned Republicans as ‘disgraceful, polluters, and extremist lemmings’ after the tornado hit Moore, OK in May 2013 … except he called it a ‘cyclone.’
Wow, what a response to such drivel from a Senator (given that that’s what most of what emanates from such is so). Glad to see most of us consider such persons ignorant, if not practical morons, but, sadly not irrelevant.
Tonight, I caught on the Houston KUHF public radio an MPR show called:
Burn: an Energy Journal, with an episode called “Rising Seas”. This is the link to their facebook blog. http://burnanenergyjournal.com/rising-seas/ I found the show alarmist in the extreme. Nothing said was actually false, but it lacked perspective, it lacked numbers, an had an abundance of exageration and red-herrings. After all, why should New Orleans be a part of a show on sea level change driven by CO2 increases, when New Orleans problem is that the delta upon which it sits is sinking quickly.
My comments posted to their page, which I duplicate here:
I caught about 30 minutes on KUHF Houston on 11/24/2013 at 6-7 pm CST. What I heard concerned Miami and New Orleans.
Sea Level is rising. There is very little doubt of that. Sea Level has risen 150 meters (over 400 feet ! ) since the end of the most recent Ice Age (14,000 years ago), an average of a meter a century. The sea level rise has been slower in the most recent 5,000 years, maybe 2-4 meters or 200-400 mm/century or 2-4 mm/year. [1]
Is it speeding up? Listening to your show, you cannot help conclude that Yes, it is speeding up. “Head for the Hills!”. That is quite a distortion of reality.
If you look at the data, it is hard to see the rate of rise is changing.
Take a look at the NOAA tidal gauges for The Battery, New York, [2]
They give a sea level rise of 2.77 (+/- 0.09) mm/yr, or about 11 inches per century. This is measured from 1856 to 2011, quite a lenghty record. Al little different than the previous 5000 years.
You spent quite a bit of time on Miami. At one point you said, that a rise of 1 foot was “very possible” within the length of a 30 year mortgage. No, it is not. Have a look at NOAA Tidal Gauges for [3] Key West, Florida. That record runs from 1910 to 2012 with a rise of 2.24 (+/- 0.16) mm/yr. In a century sea level rose 10 inches. Yet you tell people it is “very possible” it will suddenly accelerate from 2.24 mm/yr to 10.0 mm/yr to give a 1 foot rise in the length of a 30 year mortgage. There is no evidence for this acceleration. Even if you look at Vaca Key, that only records the past 40 years, it is only 2.78 mm/yr. I’d reference Miami Beach, but that record ends in 1980. See for your self. Sea level is rising, yes. Salt Water is encroaching, yes. Parts of urban miami flood more frequently when it rains, yes. But you oversold the rate of sea level rise by a factor of FIVE. No, it is not “very possible”. It is barely possible at all.
On the bit about New Orleans, I’ll give you credit for mentioning that subsidence also plays apart on the *relative* sea level rise. I don’t think you were very specific, however, with the numbers. If the global sea level is rising 2.5 mm/yr, the ground of New Orleans is subsiding by 10.0 mm/yr, or 5 to 20 mm/yr depending upon which part of the city you refer to. The issue here is, no matter what we do or not do to combat sea level change, New Orleans is sinking on account of entirely geologic sedimentary forces. So one wonders why it was included on your report of sea level rise at all, unless it was more for dramatic effect and less for imparting facts about the rate of sea level rise.
[1] http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
[2] http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8518750%20The%20Battery,%20NY
[3] http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=8724580
TeaPartyGeezer says: “Sheldon Whitehouse is the guy who stands up in the Senate, every week, for a 15 minute rant during which he rails against Republicans for denying the theory of AGW. ”
Which only reinforces the theory that … you can’t fix stupid.
Saw this in the CNS comments – http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/716/7933/original.jpg