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?quality=75)
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.
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“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
@ur momisugly 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