Proof positive politicians can’t do simple math.
From the LA Times today:
Brown’s remarks came a day after the release of two studies finding that a slow-motion and irreversible collapse of a massive cluster of glaciers in Antarctica has begun and could cause sea levels to rise worldwide by four feet within 200 years.
“If that happens, the Los Angeles airport’s going to be underwater,” Brown told reporters at a presentation of his revised state budget proposal in Los Angeles. “So is the San Francisco airport.”
Source: http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-brown-sea-level-airports-20140513-story.html
Ok let’s do the math, first a look at the sea level rate from the Los Angeles tide gauge operated by NOAA:
![9410660[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/94106601.png?resize=640%2C320)
Source: http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?stnid=9410660
Assuming nothing changes in the rate of sea level rise, and the airport would still exist there in the future, here is the math.
LAX airport elevation is 125 feet ( Source: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLAX )
125 feet = 38100mm
At the rate of 0.83mm/yr sea level rise seen at Los Angeles (from NOAA graph above) it would take 45903.6 years to reach 125 feet, we’d be in a new ice age by then and sea levels would be falling…never gonna happen.
So, at current rates, Brown’s claim is bogus.
But he’s saying it will be due to Antarctic’s western ice sheet melting.
OK, the claims is from news coverage of two papers, “Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Under Way for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica“. This study is available here:
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/files/glacier-thwaites.pdf
NASA says of the paper “Sustained increase in ice discharge from the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica, from 1973 to 2013“. This study is available here:
http://www.ess.uci.edu/researchgrp/erignot/files/grl51433.pdf
Even as Rignot and colleagues suggest that loss of the Amundsen Sea embayment glaciers appears inevitable, it remains extremely difficult to predict exactly how this ice loss will unfold and how long it will take. A conservative estimate is that it could take several centuries.
The region contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4 feet (1.2 meters).
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/news/antarctic-ice-sheet-20140512/
4 feet, and LAX airport is 125 feet above sea level. SFO airport, also mentioned by Brown is Elevation: 13 ft. according to Airnav
NASA even calculates for the worst case scenario:
The Amundsen Sea region is only a fraction of the whole West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which if melted completely would raise global sea level by about 16 feet (5 meters).
So even 16 feet wouldn’t affect LAX airport, but might affect SFO …far in the future.
Governor Brown is in a gross error with his claims. You’d think his handlers would check this simple math before they allow him to beclown himself with unsupportable claims of doom that can’t possibly affect either airport enough to cause them to be moved.
Again all this assumes that SFO and LAX will still be there in 200 years. We might be driving antigrav personal flying vehicles by then. (Well, if you believe Popular Science).
Here is where I think Brown went wrong:
He listened to the Guardian’s Susanne Goldenberg, who conflated 4 feet to 4 METERS (13 feet), which would affect SFO airport, but not LAX.
And the error is still in her story, a day later.
There isn’t even that much water on the planet, is there? I mean, if all ice, everywhere melted, how high would the sea level go?
Probably misspoke, forgot to add:”And when Guam tips over”.
The latest frenzy is rubbing it in, CAGW is an Intelligence Test.
The science is settled. Lefties have a compulsive need to prove they are stupid.
Oh good lord. (…and I’m an atheist.)
“Progressives” don’t care about math, which is why this won’t hurt Brown one bit with his supporters.
For them, it’s true if you want it to be true, unless you’re not one of them. And then anything you do is EVIL!
I refuse to believe that anyone can claim the ability to foresee hundreds of years in advance, since no one was able to predict the past 18 years of climate from two years ahead. And this is certainly true for those who believe we can dial down the Earth temps by removing carbon emissions. So apparently these yokels think that 200 plus years fom now we’ll still be burning coal and filling up at gas stations? That is perhaps their biggest piece of illogical thinking.
Let’s see what the LA Times thinks of Brown’s blunder. Whoops, did I say “think?”
An idiot would not be so stupid.
I blame the statement attributed to the Governor on the flies surrounding this long dead zombie.
You guys all make big funny. Now.
But you wait. The Sepulveda underpass is below the runway, and it will be flooding in only 36,722.88 years!
Laugh while you can. Traffic’s gonna be backed up to Ventura Blvd.
This latest brainspurt from Governor Brown really epitomises the vortex of absurd alarmism he and the rest of the Warmistas are stuck in.
Lets assume that a 4ft sea level rise actually did pose a statistical threat to LAX and or San Francisco airports. His answer is to move them? Why not just build a bund wall to protect them? The Dutch have such walls to protect about half their country, for God’s sake! It would hardly be some engineering marvel to protect a bloody airport. What a complete idiot! What is with Californians that they vote this dingbat in time after time. Was Arnie that bad? Really?
Airports will be made obsolete by personal teleportation chambers long before sea levels rise to engulf the current location of LAX.
How embarrassing !
Governor ‘Moonbeam’ spouts a proclamation after deep thought, no doubt in the “Cone Of Silence” with fellow stoner Barak Obama.
Ah Ha !
The new Gojila movie is about to premier and then stomp the daylights out of of Tokyo and New York ! Of Course ! It and the ‘papers’ are a ‘Cecil B. DeMil production,’ however not staring our Bou vie Bou Charlton Heston as the Vanquishing Hero cum laude, heavy on the cum [porn star].
Ha ha 😉
I can EASILY believe that SFO will be under 15 feet of water.
From the tsunami caused by “The Big One”, which is expected in under 200 years.
They say that ignorance is bliss. Not so much when the ignoramus is a politician.
Now, irregardless of your beliefs about climate, does anyone out there actually believe we
will still be filling our vehicles with gasoline a hundred years from now? Or burning coal or natural gas to make electricity? These people that predict well into the future always assume things won’t change much in the next hundred years (we’ll be on the iPad CLMXXV by then). That’s the most idiotic assumption I’ve ever heard. Nobody believes that. Not even the alarmists, which is quite illogical considering their beliefs. That’s the strongest argument I can think of for not doing anything.
Obviously, he is the governor, and he knows what he’s talking about.
> LAX airport is 125 feet above sea level
He knows something we don’t. Either a tsunami or an asteroid strike in the Pacific will flood LAX in the next 100 years.
Count on it. 😉
Say JJ, can those teleportation chambers be programmed to leave a few fat cells behind?
“who conflated 4 feet to 4 METERS (13 feet)”, dang those darned units, trips me up all the time. I still have trouble converting “furlongs per fortnight” into miles per hour.
Of course, once they ban all the automobiles “furlongs per fortnight’ maybe a handy metric to keep in mind.
Cheers, Kevin.
Say anything that enters his uninformed mind then spin it later. Typical of him and most all pols. How did it happen that the country is run by 2nd class minds?
Oh yeah, I forgot, think about the country song possibilities;
“There I was, cruising down the interstate, doing 100 furlongs per fortnight, I would be in Tulsa a week after next Thursday, Hopefully, she’d still be there”,
Instant classic song.
/sarc off
Good lord, I haven’t visited the LA Times in awhile and their “makeover” is atrocious. Can’t even get the article comments to load (wherein, generally, you can find the only reason to actually read an LA Times article).
M Seward, Somewhere in Oz, Gobsmacked: Was Arnie that bad? Really?
Well, uh, as a matter of fact…. I suppose if you like California’s cap and trade program.
“Governor Moonbeam” was the late Mike Royko’s gift to California, although he later took it back. Too bad he’s not still around; I suspect he might bestow it a second time. Maybe a title that could be shared with the Governator.
: > )
“There isn’t even that much water on the planet, is there? I mean, if all ice, everywhere melted, how high would the sea level go?”
This table shows approximate volumes of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/HannaBerenblit.shtml
According to this link:
http://chartsbin.com/view/wwu
The total sea surface is 361,132,000 sq km
Bring out your calculator 😉
Politicians, (politichickens) will tell you what they want you to know.
Inability to do basic math is a ‘progressive’ disease….
Acceptance of that intellectual failure serves their common core values.
High speed rail will have taken over by then so airplanes will be obsolete.
The Gov intends for the people of CA to pay for a train system designed to fail. That will become ever clearer as the delays and the costs compound. Eventually, the tracks and infrastructure will end at LAX. At about that point in time the northern end can be torn up and loaded on train cars and carried to the airport. With that for fill, one runway, then another, then the terminals and all the rest can be slowly raised in place. Up north, as the tracks are ripped up and loaded for the trip south the land can be reclaimed and planted with wine grapes or other useful things. This plan will keep the spenders in CA pleased, and as with Seattle’s tunnel machine Bertha, lawyers, courts, politicians, DOTs, MSM, and others can remain gainfully employed. What’s not to like?
It sounds to me like Jerry is troling for guvmnt money and pick pocketed coinage. No mistake on his part I be thinking.
It is 200 ,years worst case and then 1mm would be added per year. So its ,200 ,years until the onset of a ,1mm rise per year. Best case 1000 years until the onset
Haven’t the Antarctic Sea Ice levels increasing and have been for some time?
everyone has their hand out for CAGW monies:
13 May: RTCC: Ed King: UN climate treaty vital for global security, warns senior NATO official
Militaries will bear the brunt of worse disasters if world fails to strike emissions reduction deal in 2015, says Jamie Shea.
One of NATO’s most senior officials says militaries could find themselves overwhelmed by the scale of natural disasters if a global agreement to tackle climate change is not reached in Paris next year. In an interview with RTCC, Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, said projected temperature rises above and beyond 2C were alarming the global security community.
Further global warming had the potential to exacerbate what he termed the “development-terrorism nexus”, encouraging Al Qaeda and other terror groups, as well as placing extreme stress on military efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to areas affected by drought, flooding or storms.
“If we do nothing and there is no agreement, we could go up to more alarming scenarios. Then even the military, particularly with the budgets we have at the moment, could be somewhat overwhelmed,” he told RTCC…
NATO does not have an official position on the UN’s proposed climate treaty, but Shea said he agreed with those who believe global warming is one of the world’s greatest security threats.“Personally – and if I can be so arrogant as to talk for the global security community – I think it is. The problems that we are already facing today, the fact that disasters seem to be more frequent and violent, particularly in Asia, they have a paralysing effect on the economy, electricity grid and transport system.” …
“It would be very short sighted to think that suddenly that because a crisis like Ukraine has come up we can forget about all of the more intellectually demanding and complicated, but potentially much more in the long run significant causes of unrest,” he said…
NATO’s focus on climate change could increase later this year, when former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg replaces Anders Fogh Rasmussen as chief of the organisation. Currently serving as Ban Ki-moon’s climate change envoy, Stoltenberg arrives with a reputation as one of Europe’s most progressive and green politicians, with a keen awareness of the variety of threats posed by a warming planet…
http://www.rtcc.org/2014/05/13/un-climate-treaty-vital-for-global-security-warns-senior-nato-official/
RTCC: About us
Responding to Climate Change (RTCC) is a news and analysis website focused on providing the latest updates and insight into global low carbon developments. Our sister website Climate Change TV (CCTV) offers an online channel hosting interviews and footage from international climate change and development summits. We are accredited as official observers to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and run a TV studio for the UN at its climate, biodiversity and desertification talks. Our annual ‘Respond’ publication is distributed at every major UN climate summit, covering advances in low carbon policy, technology and research. RTCC and CCTV are funded by sponsors and web advertising. A list of business partners can be found on our front page…
The RTCC and CCTV team work from the London offices of our parent company Entico Corporation, which specialises in organising conferences and summits in emerging economies.
http://www.rtcc.org/about-us/
RTCC Media Partners
UNFCCC
Guardian Environment Network
Entico
UNCCD
Climate News Network
Even 100 metres of sea level rise (not even possible?) still leaves a helluva lot of land sticking up…. I am pretty sure mankind could cope, given enough lead time!
http://vrstudio.buffalo.edu/~depape/warming/100meter.html
ffohnad says: (May 13, 8:16 pm)
… How did it happen that the country is run by 2nd class minds?
3rd class education so the plebs will believe anything they’re told;
1st class lying media to tell ’em what the 2nd class minds say.
Valid over most of the (formerly) 1st world.
He listened to the Guardian’s Susanne Goldenberg, who conflated 4 feet to 4 METERS (13 feet), which would affect SFO airport, but not LAX…….
A fool misled by an idiot!
speaking of Goldenberg, Generals upgrade climate risk from a “threat multipler” to a “conflict catalyst” & the so-called antiwar Guardian is willing to go along as long as it promotes CAGW:
14 May: Guardian: Suzanne Goldenberg: Climate change poses growing threat of conflict in the Arctic, report finds
Report by former military officers says prospect of ice-free Arctic has set off scramble for shipping lanes and for access to oil
“Things are accelerating in the Arctic faster than we had looked at,” said General Paul Kern, the chairman of the Centre for Naval Analysis Corporation’s military advisory board, which produced the report. “The changes there appear to be much more radical than we envisaged.”
The prospect of an ice-free Arctic by mid-century had set off a scramble for shipping lanes by Russia and China especially, and for access to oil and other resources. “As the Arctic becomes less of an ice-contaminated area it represents a lot of opportunites for Russia,” he said. Oil companies were also moving into the Arctic.
“We think things are accelerating in the Arctic faster than we had looked at seven years ago,” he said, saying the situation had the potential to “spark conflict there”…
The report from the retired generals goes further, however, upgrading the climate risk from a “threat multipler” to a “conflict catalyst”…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/14/climate-change-arctic-security-threat-report
Pamela Gray, fat cells? Presumably the prototype he tested worked on brain cells.
funny how Suzanne Goldenberg didn’t mention these guys are “government-funded” or that the Report is just a re-hash of the 2007 report, with an upgrade to the “catalyst” nonsense:
14 May: NYT: Coral Davenport: Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat by Military Researchers
WASHINGTON — The accelerating rate of climate change poses a severe risk to national security and acts as a catalyst for global political conflict, a report published Tuesday by a leading ***government-funded*** military research organization concluded.
The Center for Naval Analyses Military Advisory Board found that climate change-induced drought in the Middle East and Africa is leading to conflicts over food and water and escalating longstanding regional and ethnic tensions into violent clashes…
In addition, the report predicted that an increase in catastrophic weather events around the world will create more demand for American troops, even as flooding and extreme weather events at home could damage naval ports and military bases…
In an interview, Secretary of State John Kerry signaled that the report’s findings would influence American foreign policy.
“Tribes are killing each other over water today,” Mr. Kerry said. “Think of what happens if you have massive dislocation, or the drying up of the waters of the Nile, of the major rivers in China and India. The intelligence community takes it seriously, and it’s translated into action.”…
In March, the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, the agency’s main public document describing the current doctrine of the United States military, drew a direct link between the effects of global warming — like rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns — and terrorism…
***Tuesday’s report is an update of a report by the center’s Military Advisory Board in 2007, the first major study to draw the link between climate change and national security…
The 2007 report also described climate change as a “threat multiplier”…
The 2014 report updates that language, calling climate change a “catalyst for conflict” — a phrase intentionally chosen, the report’s authors said, to signal that climate change is an active, driving force in starting conflict…
“In the past, the thinking was that climate change multiplied the significance of a situation,” said Gen. Charles F. Wald, who contributed to both reports and is retired from the Air Force. “Now we’re saying it’s going to be a direct cause of instability.”…
Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a vocal skeptic of the established science that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming, scoffed at the idea that climate change is linked to national security threats.
“There is no one in more pursuit of publicity than a retired military officer,” he said of the report’s authors. “I look back wistfully at the days of the Cold War. Now you have people who are mentally imbalanced, with the ability to deploy a nuclear weapon. For anyone to say that any type of global warming is anywhere close to the threat that we have with crazy people running around with nuclear weapons, it shows how desperate they are to get the public to buy this.”
Adm. David Titley, a co-author of the report and a meteorologist who is retired from the Navy, said political opposition would not extinguish what he called the indisputable data in the report.
“The ice doesn’t care about politics or who’s caucusing with whom, or Democrats or Republicans,” said Admiral Titley, who now directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Pennsylvania State University.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/us/politics/climate-change-deemed-growing-security-threat-by-military-researchers.html?hpw&rref=science&_r=0
Nielsen Media Research: Monday’s Cable Ratings & Broadcast Finals
Years of Living Dangerously (8:00)* – Showtime
0.134 million viewers, #47; 0.057 million adults 18-49 (0.04 rating), #47 http://www.thefutoncritic.com/ratings/2014/05/13/mondays-cable-ratings-and-broadcast-finals-voice-dancing-continue-their-reign-61511/cable_20140512/
13 May: WaPo: Wesley Lowery: Rubio clarifies climate change comments during National Press Club appearance
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) acknowledged that the climate is changing, but said that there is no legislative proposal currently on the table that would put a stop to it, while speaking Tuesday at the National Press Club.
“Headlines notwithstanding, of course the climate is changing. The climate is always changing and that is a measurable that you can see. There is climate change.” Rubio said. “The issue is whether there is legislative proposals before us that can do anything about it, what I have said and what I disagree with is the notion that if we pass cap and trade it will stop this from happening.”
Rubio made headlines over the weekend when he told ABC News that the impact of man-made climate change is being overstated…
***Rubio was asked three times by the National Press Club audience about those climate change comments…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/05/13/rubio-walks-back-climate-change-comments/
13 May: The Wire: Abby Ohlheiser: Marco Rubio’s Stance on Climate Change Is a Hot Mess
“I’ve never disputed that the climate is changing,” Marco Rubio said on Tuesday. He added: “Of course the climate is changing.”…
“I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it,” Rubio said on Sunday, placing himself firmly in the “climate change denier” camp…
But it appears that Rubio is uncomfortable with that label, hence his remarks on Tuesday that read like a walk back but don’t actually clarify much of anything. They’re the “I’m not not licking toads” statement of climate change denial. Here’s a portion of his statement on Tuesday at the National Press Club, via NBC (emphasis ours): …ETC
Rubio added that he’s fine with proposals that are more environmentally-friendly, so long as they are “also good for our economy.” He added, “for people to go out and say ‘if you pass this bill that I am proposing, this will somehow lead us to have less tornadoes and less hurricanes,’ that’s just not an accurate statement.” Except the quantity of tornadoes and hurricanes is not actually what most recent reports on the issue have pointed to…
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/05/marco-rubios-stance-on-climate-change-is-a-hot-mess/370814/
“There isn’t even that much water on the planet, is there? I mean, if all ice, everywhere melted, how high would the sea level go?”
About 70-80 meters (250 feet). But that won’t happen. Neither the Ellsworth mountains (4900 meters), the Transantarctic mountains (4500 meters), the Executive Committee Range (4300 meters) nor Fimbulheimen (3100 meters) are going to become ice-free until Antarctica moves away from the pole or the sun turns into red giant, whichever comes first.
The Ellsworth and Executive Comittee ranges are in West Antarctica by the way.
“High speed rail will have taken over by then so airplanes will be obsolete.”
Sure, particularly on the trans-pacific runs.
Has anybody told this fool he has got his maths wrong?If yes what was his answer?
@ Truthseeker
Yes, Antarctic Sea Ice has been expanding.
On the other hand, Ice over the continent itself has been shrinking.
There is a notoriously dishonest post on the SkS site that calls the increased sea ice a ‘myth’, because the land ice has been melting.(Non-sequiter, much?) I am told that the IPCC forecast has always been that the Antarctic should accumulate land ice for the rest of this century. That’s something that if its true really ought to have been mentioned by the site.
tty
It could be sooner than you think as China is planning a rail link to the US under the Bering straits
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2623491/China-considers-building-rail-link-AMERICA-8-000-mile-journey-two-days-involve-going-125-mile-undersea-tunnel-Alaska.html
tonyb
So if the ice sheets are running out out to sea quicker than previously noted then is there no replenishment of ice at the top or has that stopped? In other words Antarctica is only losing ice?
JJ says:
May 13, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Pamela Gray says:
May 13, 2014 at 8:00 pm
“Say JJ, can those teleportation chambers be programmed to leave a few fat cells behind?”
Yes, but remember Brundlefly.
We’re not exactly dealing with rational individuals here.
1) Governor Brown is trawling for further license to act NOW NOW NOW!
2) The idiots he is aiming his hysteric rhetoric at are incapable of grasping geometry, geography, or geology….
they do embrace GEOMANCY however b/c LITERALLY it would take magic for the water to walk 113 ft uphill.
Calving glaciers are taken as a sign of glacier collapse but it is the opposite. Calving takes place because glaciers reach their end point over water and the faster the glacier moves the faster the calving. Glaciers increase speed because there is a greater ice mass pushing the speed up under gravity, ie. the glacier is getting larger due to increased snow fall up route.
Currently we are entering the Antarctic winter and sea ice is at record levels and growing so the chances of this model derived scenario taking place is low to zero.
“At the rate of 0.83mm/yr sea level rise seen at Los Angeles”
Is it sea level rise or other factors.
There are dams in the Mountains stopping sediment reaching the beaches causing coastal erosion.
Southern California is a geologically young and erosional coast.
The Los Angeles basin was formed in a gap left by rotating and uplifting blocks of crust 15 million years ago. Tectonic crust deformation including faulting, uplift, down drop and warping continues in southern California today.
I would expect to see some sea level rise from this!
http://www.internationalrivers.org/dams-and-geology
Since the 1920s dams have reduced by four-fifths the sediment reaching the coast of Southern California.
cont…
if you didn’t know better you wold blame it on global warming-
http://www.internationalrivers.org/dams-and-geology
“The beaches in a 90-kilometre long littoral cell north of San Diego were more than 300 metres wide in 1922. Today some have entirely disappeared. The beaches once protected cliffs from wave erosion; their disappearance has led to cliff collapses which caused millions of dollars of damage to property and roads during the 1980s”
Each dam stops sediment reaching the coastline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam
“By 1997, there were an estimated 800,000 dams worldwide, some 40,000 of them over 15 m (49 ft) high”
http://earth.esa.int/workshops/venice06/participants/1092/paper_venice06.pdf
“This study decomposed the satellite
data into Empirical Orthogonal Functions, and then
estimated the temporal history of the principal modes
using the tide gauge data. While an acceleration of
roughly the expected magnitude was detected, the
errors in this technique are thought to be quite large”
You’d think his handlers would check this simple math before they allow him to beclown himself with unsupportable claims of doom that can’t possibly
=========================================================
Nope. You are talking about progs — you have your facts and they have theirs, and theirs are right, even if they are wrong, because they want love and peace and you don’t and also because Bush.
Moonbeam was a disaster as a governor 40 years ago. What possessed Californians to think he had gotten any smarter after spending those years doing nothing constructive?
Maybe instead of “Moonbeam” we should call him “Chuckles”. The “moonbeam” moniker is old anyway, being coined in nearly 40 years ago by Mike Royko, who was later sorry he had.
Let’s be honest, in many ways we sceptics are winning (no warming for almost 18 years), but with the press we’re losing big time. Even Reuters yesterday had a headline, “Antarctic Melting” with a few lines that didn’t explain that it would take hundreds of years even if it’s true! So we’ve lost out with the media. Newspapers and TV just love catastrophe, and that’s why they won’t tell the truth. So if this twat of a Governor reads the press and repeats it (the Guardian!), then we shouldn’t be surprised.
The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley says:
May 14, 2014 at 4:01 am
Let’s be honest, in many ways we sceptics are winning (no warming for almost 18 years), but with the press we’re losing big time. Even Reuters yesterday had a headline, “Antarctic Melting”
—————
Skeptics are winning the comments war below the articles though not in the case of Reuters and Antarctic article.
Reuters comments 0
“This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication”
It must have been very limited!
The bigger the claims of doom the less they are believed. Let them make huge claims of sea level rise and boiling oceans and doom and gloom and let them cry wolf.
It seems to me that the skeptics are the only ones dealing with real facts in this debate and are capable of doing actual math.
That is really the issue. We are trying to get facts and real data on the table and the science/media is peddling myths.
You would think, we will win in the long-run because humans eventually adopt fact and truth when they are finally exposed to it. But movements based on myth can last for thousands of years. So far, the myth-based climate science has got us to adopt inefficient energy sources and waste 0.5% of GDP per year (and economies need every 0.5% they can get their hands on right now).
Continue exposing more people to fact? More climategates? Make sure editors know when their news writers are getting the facts wrong? Get Nature and GRL to stop publishing pseudo-climate-science-fiction? Get the NCDC out of the temperature record management business? Stop the funding of myth-making in this field?
Long road to go.
Am I wrong in thinking that when an ice sheet pushes out to sea, from the land, that it does so under its own weight so to speak? I.E. something has got to land on the land end to push something out at the sea end. Obviously there comes a point when what lands at A comes out at B, so it suggests that no more will come out than gets trapped, albeit with a time lag. This meaning to me that nothing is really changing that much or will change that much – and that seems to be the case from the measurements.
Catastrophic Global Warming should be considered a religion because there is no credible science to support it. I feel the government is violating the concept of separation of church and state by promoting CGW and as a citizen I’m getting tired of it.
Sea level rise or subsidence in the Los Angeles basin and Santa Ana Basin
looks like subsidence to me.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs06903/images/p01f01.jpg
“Catastrophic Global Warming should be considered a religion because there is no credible science to support it.”
I would agree, and amplify it further by pointing out that anthropogenic global warming is believed, partially because any and all data that refutes it is denied credence. They basically take the stand that there is no data refuting global warming because there can’t be.
Can’t let inconvenient facts get in the way of their faith.
Ramsey and Moslow (1987) attribute 80% of the observed relative sea level rise in coastal
Louisiana to “compactional subsidence.”
Not withstanding the utter alarmist drivel from Goldenberg, she does appear in this case to be a little on the conservative side in her claims. She states that the loss of the whole of the Western Antarctic ice sheet will produce a 4m see level rise, whereas the NASA calculation is for a 5m rise.
So I don’t think that Goldenberg can be the source of Brown,s wild claims.
In a Democracy, The People Get The Government They Deserve
Did anyone consider this? “The West Antarctica ice sheet bed can extend to more than 2,500 m below sea level. Much of the land in this area would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there.”(this from Wikipedia) Now if I’m reading this correctly the ice in this sheet has already raised sea level all that it’s going to raise it as the ice is in the ocean now. It’s not supported by land so melt away, the only real difference would be a reduction of salinity of the ocean.
Sometimes you don’t know that your government is led by a math challenged imbecile, but let’s not be surprised, There’s a reason why the Koch Brothers are billionaires and not members of parliament.
I have to point out that we Engineers have tools for these sort of problems that (unlike CAGW), have proven efficacy and predictability, they are called sea-walls, levees, and landfill. He should read up on Kansai International Airport which used to be the bay, now THAT’S a problem – 4 ft in 200 hundred years – trivial.
Sometimes these idiots can’t see past their own navels.
@ ffohnad
“How did it happen that the country is run by 2nd class minds?”
We haven’t launched the “B” ark yet.
Politicians should have to pass a basic math and science test before they are able to hold office.
Math is hard. That is why there’s Political Science, for the lesser among us to major in.
Jimmy Dell says:
May 14, 2014 at 5:58 am
Much of the ice cap is 2 miles high, so rest assured, it is capable of raising sea level, rebound notwithstanding. The ice started growing above sea level, but depressed the ground as it rose. The absurdity is that CO2 could be blamed for a long term irreversible trend, when we know that the RW and MW periods were warmer and longer than our piddling 30 years. Moreover, if there were any truth to this propaganda it would be good news, since a few feet of SLR are by far preferable to another LIA. –AGF
I need help with this folks. I have been trying to figure out how they arrived an ocean rise of 4m with the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I think the ice sheet is too small for that.
The West Antarctic Ice sheet contains only 2.2 million km3 of water. The worlds oceans contain 1.3 billion km3 of water, with margin of error +- 20 million km3. The margin of error is almost 20 times the water in the ice sheet.
The surface area of the worlds oceans is about 335 million km2, average depth is 3685 meters.
How did they arrive at 4 meters rise?
Sorry if people are irritated by me bringing this up again, but those who think all these ridiculous statements of doom with come back to haunt these people in the future – well, I think history tells us that just isn’t going to happen. This has been going on for almost 50 years now – starting with the population bomb lunatics. Currently, CAGW – excuse me, Climate Change – is just the latest way for the misanthropes of society – especially the haters of the undeveloped 3rd world – to attempt to implement massive social change, of which dramatic human population reduction is, and has always been, the real main objective. The real catastrophic polluter is not CO2, it’s US. If the CAGW movement eventually does go away, it will quickly get replaced by some other farce that also has human population reduction as its real, main, largely hidden-from-the-public cause. And all the lunatics like Brown and their proclamations of doom will not be mocked in the future, but they will all be actually rewarded for their efforts by the “powers-that-be” in trying to implement social change. I wish it was otherwise, by that is what a study of history tells me, anyway.
Also, Ferd Berple says:
“In a Democracy, The People Get The Government They Deserve”
I have to disagree with this as well. CAGW is massive misinformation and propaganda, and not just within one democratic society – its’ worldwide – well, at least among all the so-called “elite” powers. We are not “informed” voters, we are intentionally mislead/lied to voters. It’s hard to blame the populace at this point. This is really an “elite” group of people from all over the developed Western World who want to ram massive cultural change down our throats, by any means necessary. If CAGW doesn’t do the job, they will find something else to use as an excuse. And, the truth will again be optional.
“Flashback from the Washington Times, July 9, 1971, a NASA scientist using a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen” predicted an ice age would occur within 50-60 years. According to Hansen’s computer model, “they found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere.”
Yes, but by my calculations, by the time SFO is underwater, Jerry Brown will have given every dollar on Earth to Elon Musk 14 times over.
klem says:
May 14, 2014 at 7:11 am
(2.2 x 10^6km^3) / (335 x 10^6km^2) = 6.6m –that’s if ALL your (West Antarctic) ice melted.
–AGF
“Leo Morgan says:
May 14, 2014 at 1:28 am
@ Truthseeker
Yes, Antarctic Sea Ice has been expanding.
On the other hand, Ice over the continent itself has been shrinking.”
Leo, do you have a cite for this? There seems little information on ice volume, although a recent paper plus Bedmap2 both say there is more ice, not less over land.
I have seen this argument on Antarctic ice a bunch lately, but no cites. Thanks.
We know that glaciers from the Rockies, Andes, and Alps are still recovering from the LIA. It stands to reason that West Antarctic glaciers are too. –AGF
AGF says “= 6.6m –that’s if ALL your (West Antarctic) ice melted.”
Um, but you divided km3 (VOLUME) by km2 (AREA). I don’t think that works.
LOL I’d certainly hope we’d advance past needing LAX in its current form by the time the West Antarctic Ice Sheet completely slid into the ocean — which I’m sure most of us are not delusional in thinking that’s actually going to happen.
klem says:
May 14, 2014 at 7:58 am
Yes, the unit² cancel out, so you’re left with unit in the numerator. More to the point, since he was working with km, he should have put the answer as 0.0066km. 😉
More evidence that you don’t need physics to understand the key points related to climate change and its impacts. Simple arithmatic will suffice.
What I don’t have an answer for is what to do when people exhibit their incompetence in a skill they should have mastered by the 6th grade.
The mere existence of SFO (mostly on land reclaimed from the Bay) is proof that engineers can handle water.
Ralph Kramden says:
May 14, 2014 at 4:42 am
Catastrophic Global Warming should be considered a religion because there is no credible science to support it. I feel the government is violating the concept of separation of church and state by promoting CGW and as a citizen I’m getting tired of it.
============================================================
It is so considered. From +4yrs ago in the UK legal system.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6494213/Climate-change-belief-given-same-legal-status-as-religion.html
Has anyone done a serious study as to just how much the sea would rise if the
polar ice melted? I am not a scientist, but the North Polar cap and the Antarctic
ice shelves are already displacing as much as they ever will. The only Ice that
could effect sea level is (Unless I am wrong) would be glacial mass.
If one of you eggheads could answer the question or point me to a study, I would
appreciate it. I have a hard time believing in the Waterworld scenario where the
sea levels could rise enough to swallow Manhattan or even Mt. Everest.
The 135 foot elevation is the terminal. I’m not sure what the elevation is at the runways that extend to just short of the beach, but erosion from winter storms would reach those runways rather quickly with a sea level rise of only a couple feet. That is the immediate threat of sea level rise…wave action causing erosion, plus in low lying areas even a rise if three feet would cause wide spread flooding when storms combine with high tide. The watertable would also rise in the area which might weaken the runways closest to the beach. The terminal itself, at 135 feet, would be unaffected, aside from no longer being served by major carriers…..
Don’t let anybody get away with being so bloody stupid.
Call up Google Maps: Display Marina del Rey, Dockweiler State Beach, Pershing Drive, and the LAX runways. there are not “feet” between the beach and the FIRST road behind the beach, but hundreds of feet. There are thousands of feet (horizontal) between the beach and Pershing Drive (The major divided highway (itself with right-of-way) several hundred feet wide) and hundreds more between Pershing drive and the ENDS of the LAX runways.
And against this you try to excuse a liberal politician’s stupidity anti-science exaggerations by yourself claiming “storm erosion” UPHILL through the elevation between the beach and even the higher ground that Pershing Drive itself offers as a defense against Pacific waves? For a “possible” sea level increase of 4 inches in 40 years?
Brick Wahl says:
May 14, 2014 at 10:32 am
Yeah, those taxiways totally have 100ft or more of climb in ’em, right? Also, 1000 years definitely isn’t enough time to build a new runway.
Erm, isn`t this ice floating on the sea?
If so that idiot who labels himself a scientist ought to know the sea is already 4′ higher. But it`s not.
My take on Brown; he is a tosser.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai_International_Airport
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/817.php
This is one my favorite posts of all time. It demonstrates so starkly how absurd
some of these apocalyptic claims are. Brown’s staff work was terrible.
Understanding the sea level debate requires no PhDs. You can stand on the shore and confirm or reject what is going on. Looking at the NOAA graph showing sea level rise in LA at about 3 inches per century is doubly delicious. How do warmists look at themselves in the mirror.
Governor Moonbeam and his ilk have their heads up in the clouds and live in a mythological eco-dreamland where the climate never changes, where CO2 in the atmosphere stays at a “perfect” 350 ppm, where the world is powered exclusively by all those wonderful wind turbines (and just ignore how many birds they kill…it’s not important), solar panels on our roofs, and $2 billion solar farms out in the deserts (and don’t worry about the sandstorms…they don’t happen anymore). There are rarely if ever any serious storms, floods or droughts because we finally have the climate under our firm control. Those solar panels and wind turbines provide all the wonderful, free and clean energy we could possibly need despite cloudy days, nighttime and calm, windless days. That is because FINALLY developed that really terrific and super-duper battery that can store excess energy from the sun and wind for use when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow….and they never, EVER goes dead! Incredible.
And I’m going to win the lottery jackpot tomorrow. And the U.N. is on the cusp of bringing total peace to the world and ending world hunger. And I’m Smokey the Bear, and….. (do I need a sarc tag here?)
The west end runways are 100 feet (just saw the topographic map0.
I was speaking in terms of decades, actually. coastal erosion in winter storms is a continuous battle on the California coast, entire streets of homes have fallen into the ocean in a bad winter (making for great TV, actually.). These were homes built originally a safe distance from the cliff. So a rise of three to five feet in a few decades will cause the coast to erode. This also happened on the shores of Lake Michigan in the 1980s, when the lake was at record levels after a bad snow year and storms bit into the shore by hundreds of feet. At the same time LAX is built on sandy soil and the water table can be expected to rise with the sea level rises which also affects stability. We are talking in decades here, not in the next couple years. And we’re not talking about the airport being submerged but some of the runways being undermined. That is inevitable. But decades from now. By 2050. I’ll be dead by then, hopefully you all are younger and will get to witness the excitement, or at least land on different runways.
Erosion on the California coast is a constant battle. Port Hueneme u[ the coast 60 miles has seen its beach erode a hundred feet in just a couple storms this year.
And I suspect you could find plenty of good Republican engineers in Los Angeles who would tell you that the LAX runways closest to the beach will be threatened by sea level rise by 2050.
There is a report on the prospect of sea level rise on the coastal regions of Los Angeles (done by good Republican USC, in fact) here that specifically mentions the risks to the stretch of shore that includes the western most runways of LAX.
http://www.usc.edu/org/seagrant/research/SeaLevelRise_docs/hires_pdfs/City%20of%20LA%20SLR%20Vulnerability%20Study%20FINAL%20Summary%20Report%20Online%20Hyperlinks.pdf
Not sure if any if you live in southern California, but the soils here are very unstable and prone to dramatic erosion and liquefaction. Winter storms can take aways swathes of beach, winter rains can take down hillsides. If the rivers weren’t channeled they would wander across the basin every few years, flooding everything, like they used to. (In fact the LA River used to empty into the sea in what is now Ballona Creek, north of LAX; the LA River currently enters the sea in Long Beach far to the south. Changes ike that typically occur in one winter). So few Angelenos are surprised that the runways nearest the sea could be threatened by rising sea levels.
Anyway, you’ll be able to pick up a nice condo, cheap, in twenty years.
A good animated debate, guys. It’s funny that I am forever being attacked by both the left and the right depending on the issue. It takes real skill to be called a reactionary and a communist on the same thread, which I managed just last week, though that was on a different subject.
Thanks for reading this. Writers are so long winded.
Brown is playing dumb in order to go after more federal money after getting attention and success for water projects from drought and part of the funding for high speed rail. It beats betting on shaky solar companies like Solyndra.
‘richard says:
May 14, 2014 at 7:13 am
“Flashback from the Washington Times, July 9, 1971, a NASA scientist using a “computer program developed by Dr. James Hansen” predicted an ice age would occur within 50-60 years. According to Hansen’s computer model, “they found no need to worry about the carbon dioxide fuel-burning puts in the atmosphere.” ‘
Would be an irony of ironies if the pause turned into global cooling, and he turned out to be right, thereby contradicting and confirming himself at the same time….
Wouldn’t want that though…nice to have a little warmth now and then (could use a bit less pollen, though; the bees might have something to say about that, though…).
Brick Wahl says:
May 14, 2014 at 10:32 am
The 135 foot elevation is the terminal.
Not sure what the elevation of the terminal is as there are several unless its the . All the four runways have end elevations over 100ft above sea level except for the Easterly end of the Southern runways which are just over 90ft asl.
See the diagram here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LAX_Airport_Diagram.svg
Either way it doesn’t matter as the governor hasn’t done ANY homework.
[“unless its the.” ?? “…unless it is the base of the main control tower.” maybe? Mod]
“Brick Wahl says:
May 14, 2014 at 1:01 pm
….
There is a report on the prospect of sea level rise on the coastal regions of Los Angeles (done by good Republican USC, in fact)…”
I’ll bet that the report was done by Scripps, which is associated with USC (or at least was when I was at SC eons ago), but are so far west, er, left that one could say they were RINO…
With regard to the falling coast, folks in Malibu endure disasters every few years, yet still rebuild (yep, most of them are the ones pushing solar and windmills – must be nice to have money to throw
away)…anyway, they had an earthquake, a fire, and a flood (due in part to the missing watershed) all within about five years. I had a customer that (sadly) rebuilt each time…he didn’t want to hear any comments about “shake, bake, rattle and roll”…
The mid-to-late 70s had massive landslides in LA, 30 years later not so much….I wouldn’t be surprised if they happened again in 10-20 years…cycles…shift happens…
The people literally on the beach can only rebuild if the land is still there, crazy as it seems, yeah thy do. There are stretches on PCH closer to Point Mugu that will be a serious problem. And the stretch of 101 between Ventura and Carpenteria is litterally built on land fill that takes a tremendous beating every year…I suspect you’ll see a state of the art elevated expressway there.
Ya know, was just talking to the wife and she pointed out that the bluffs between LAX and the sea are actually sand dunes, and will melt away with both storm surge and a rising water table. There are similar dunes from San Diego to Pismo Beach. (Hence our famous sand fleas. You see a lot of “Las Pulgas” names up here for waterways. Rivers and creeks tend to retain their original names (hence all the Indian names for rivers east of the Rockies that I can never pronounce) and the Spanish named a lot of creeks for the goddam fleas, i.e. las pulgas.. They must have driven them nuts.)
Finally–this is where I wind up getting yelled at by both sides–global warming will not end LA at all. It’ll happen gradually enough that the city will adapt. New opportunities, money to be made, it’ll be exciting. Thriving civilizations can deal with almost any change and the US (and western civilization itself) is a thriving civilization. You can find sunken cities all over the globe–a huge chunk of ancient Alexandria is underwater–and even more are now far inland, as rivers silted up and pushed out the land into the sea,
Take care…I love the fire of this blog. I probably wouldn’t agree with a lot of it, perhaps even most of it, but that’s not the point. Anyway, I’m following it.
I’m at brickwahl.com
Brick
“Stephen Skinner says:
May 14, 2014 at 2:15 am
JJ says:
May 13, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Pamela Gray says:
May 13, 2014 at 8:00 pm
“Say JJ, can those teleportation chambers be programmed to leave a few fat cells behind?”
Yes, but remember Brundlefly.”
Yep, Restaurant at the End of the Universe has this cautionary poem:
“I teleported home last night with Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole Meggy’s heart away and I got Sidney’s leg.”
and, regarding governors and government (from the “Guide”):
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
and to tie this back to California (moonbeam, granola, fruit, nuts, but mostly flakes 🙂 )
[Arthur Dent]
“They’ve discovered how to turn excess body fat into gold,” he said, in a sudden blur of coherence.
“You’re kidding.”
“Oh yes,” he said, “no,” he corrected himself, “they have.”
He rounded on the doubting part of his audience, which was all of it, and so it took a little while to round on it completely.
“Have you been to California?” he demanded. “Do you know the sort of stuff they do there?”
Three members of his audience said they had and that he was talking nonsense.
“You haven’t seen anything,” insisted Arthur. “Oh yes,” he added, because someone was offering to buy another round.”
Sometimes truth IS stranger than fiction 🙂
No problem. Just bring back the PanAm clippers Indiana Jones on.
==========================================================
But while personal teleportation chambers may take care of the COz problem they’ll then claim that personal teleportation chambers are disrupting the space-time continuum.
Anthony:
“Moonbeam”? Didn’t he last leave office as Governor :Medfly”?
Bob
The tide gauge across the Bay from SFO at Alameda Air Station, shows essentially no change in sea level since 1940.
“Gunga Din says:
May 14, 2014 at 2:21 pm
JJ says:
May 13, 2014 at 7:41 pm
Airports will be made obsolete by personal teleportation chambers long before sea levels rise to engulf the current location of LAX.
==========================================================
But while personal teleportation chambers may take care of the COz problem they’ll then claim that personal teleportation chambers are disrupting the space-time continuum.”
—
“Eddies in the space-time continuum again”…
“Well, get him back out”….
(might be Douglas Adams, not sure…)
These studies did not explicitly blame global warming for their projected cataclysmic event, but it is close enough for Governor Brown to invoke the basic political tenet of global warming science:
“IT IS APPROPRIATE TO HAVE AN OVER-REPRESENTATION OF FACTUAL PRESENTATIONS (LIE ABOUT) HOW DANGEROUS (GLOBAL WARMING) IS.”– Al Gore
Thank you guys (and gals,) your response to my question was overwhelming! But
the question remains unanswered. It was not about a 3″ rise in a century, it was about
the doomsday scenario. Forget the ice shelves and the Arctic ice cap. What is the
total volume of glacial ice North and South?
What is the total surface area of all of the worlds oceans?
Here is the killer: One would have to factor in topography at both the Arctic and
Antarctic circles.
If the ice at both poles melted, leaving not even the volume of an ice cube, how would
this effect sea level?
I am a layman, not a scientist. But I do not believe the idea that global warming will result
in the end of the world as we know it. To paraphrase Billy Bob Thornton in Armageddon,
“It is a big ass ocean!”
Governor Medfly is always looking for an excuse to raise taxes, and these scare jobs unfortunately may provide it.
@Bob Lansford –
Yes (see my post just now, above). Brown listened to enviro-wackos opposing spraying for the Mediterranean fruit fly, when it could have been stopped within a small area, and the delay wound up costing the state $2 billion to eradicate the fly. Totally needless waste of public funds, but oh how typical of how the enviros have their priorities bassackwards.
Late Wednesday afternoon, aides to Gov Moonbeam walks back his idiotic statement.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-brown-lax-remarks-20140514-story.html
Stephen Skinner says:
May 14, 2014 at 1:22 pm
“…The 135 foot elevation is the terminal.”
Not sure what the elevation of the terminal is as there are several unless its the .
[“unless its the.” ?? “…unless it is the base of the main control tower.” maybe? Mod]
Oops. I was too hasty. I don’t know but that sounds logical. Either way the various elevations across LAX show how something that looks fairly flat can vary so much!
do they factor these things on when they took about sea levels rise.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1184-los-angeles-bouncing-due-to-water-storage.html#.U3SqwbvLjxw
Researchers from the US Geological Survey first identified the problem in a network of 250 seismic stations it set up in the Los Angeles basin after the 1987 and 1994 earthquakes. Position data from some stations showed unexpected movements.
To trace their origins, Gerald Bawden of USGS compared a series of elevation profiles compiled by satellite-based radar at different times. He found that a 20 by 40 kilometre region was moving up and down by between 10 and 11 centimetres each year. In addition to this annual cycle, the surface was sinking by 12 millimetres a year.
lordy!!!
do they factor these things in when they talk about sea level rise.
Attn: mods: isnt’ this (a) off-topic, and (b) pretty much spam?
elusiveparticle says:
conspiracy stuff about fluoride
[The mods discussed marking it as Spam, but elected not to. Mod]
I was merely thinking that if there was a serious study that could refute
the “Doomsday scenario,” it would take a lot of wind out the warmers
sails. I find it hard to believe that sea levels would submerge the tallest
skyscrapers in Manhattan and create the premise for a bad Kevin Costner
movie.
OK, so LAX is never going to happen, even IF you believe this latest sea level rise scenario, but San Francisco and Oakland are a bit more credible as SFO’s elevation is only 13′ and OAK’s is only 9′ ( http://skyvector.com/airport/OAK/Metropolitan-Oakland-International-Airport ).