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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“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 ).