Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Science Magazine is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. I’m reading my AAAS Newsletter, and I find the following blurb (emphasis mine):
Virginia Panel Releases Coastal Flooding Report. A subpanel of the Secure Commonwealth Panel of Virginia released a report containing several recommendations for dealing with risks posed by coastal flooding. The report, which is largely based on data from a 2013 report by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, predicts a sea level rise of 1.5 feet within the next 20 to 50 years along the Virginia coast.
My bad number detector started ringing like crazy. Let me convert that to metric and see where we get. A foot and a half is 450 mm. Global sea level rise these days is on the order of two to three mm per year. This is also about the rate of rise that has occurred over the last century. To rise a foot and a half at the historical (and current) rate would take from 150 to 225 years. OK, we’ll need to shorten that for local subsidence, but still … so I go to take a look at the underlying report I linked to above.
I get the report, and I’m reading through it, and I bust out laughing. There’s been a recent thread here on Watts Up With That regarding consensus. I thought that this was a marvelous example of the modern and meaningless use of the term “consensus” (emphasis mine).
The future of sea level change in Virginia is most appropriately forecast by reference to the state-of-the-science synthesis and recommendations prepared for the National Climate Assessment (Parris et al. 2012). The consensus of scientists working on this report is that by 2100 global sea level will be between 8 inches and 6.6 feet above the level in 1992. When modified by local and regional factors this information provides the best available basis for planning. SOURCE
The “consensus” is that sea level rise by 2100 will be between eight inches (20 cm) and seven feet (2.1 m)? Oh, that’s just too good. And how is that floor-to-ceiling estimate the “best available basis for planning”?
In any case, the report allows us to run the numbers. According to the report, they have allowed 2.7 mm/year for local subsidence, viz:
Therefore the future sea level scenarios presented in Figure 16 are the global scenarios modified to include local subsidence (estimated at 2.7 millimeters/year or about 0.1 inch/year).
To get that 450 mm (1.5′) of rise in 50 years would require that the seas rise by no less than nine mm per year. If we allow 2.7 mm/year for subsidence as they did, it would have to rise at 6.3 mm per year, starting now and continuing for fifty years.
And it gets worse. To get that foot and a half of rise in 20 years would require that the seas immediately start rising at 22.5 mm per year, call it 20 mm per year after subsidence. I note in passing that this rate is the maximum rate mentioned in the underlying document … in other words, they’ve taken the absolute worst and most ludicrous estimate, 6.6 feet by the year 2100, and called that the “best available estimate for planning”? … spare me …
And how fast is the sea level rising around Virginia, including subsidence? There’s a curious side story. I google subsidence Virginia tide. First link returned? “Making sense of senseless sea level scares in Norfolk Virginia“, right here at WUWT. Goes to show the global reach of this blog, you don’t get to the top of the Google food chain unless lots of folks link to your post …
In any case, that post shows the trend of sea-level rise at Sewells Point VA is 4.4 mm/yr and 3.8 mm/yr at Portsmouth, Virginia. IF the subsidence is in fact 2.7 mm/year, this puts the Sewells Point sea level rise without subsidence at 4.4 – 2.7 = 1.7 mm/year … and at Portsmouth, 3.8 – 2.7 = 1.1 mm/year rise excluding subsidence.
So it looks like in Virginia, IF we make their assumption of 2.7 mm/yr of subsidence, the sea level itself is historically going up at no more than two mm per year … and they claim it’s going to jump immediately to three to ten times the historical rate? Fuggedaboutit.
Here’s the crazy part. In parallel with the current “hiatus” in warming, we have seen a deceleration in the rate of sea-level rise. I discussed an attempt to explain this “pause” in sea-level rise in my post “Sea Water Level, Fresh Water Tilted“. Anthony also discussed this slowdown here.
Now, the alarmists started this booshwa about an impending and dangerous acceleration in sea-level rise back in the 1980s. James Hansen has repeated this claim of impending acceleration for decades, as have many others. It’s become a recurrent meme for the alarmists, repeated around the world. And for all of that time, there hasn’t been the slightest sign of any increase in the rate of sea-level rise. None at all, and indeed, instead of acceleration, we’ve seen deceleration.
However, when it comes to climate alarmism, facts don’t seem to be important in the slightest … welcome to post-normal science, where actual observations and real-world data are just an insignificant detail.
w.
PS—the usual request. If you disagree with someone, please quote the exact words you disagree with. Otherwise, nobody knows what you are referring to, and misunderstandings multiply.
” The consensus of scientists working on this report is that by 2100 global sea level will be between 8 inches and 6.6 feet above the level in 1992.”
Imagine going to buy a used car, and the Kelly Bluebook had the price of that car in similar condition between $800 and $7,900. How long do you think people would continue to use Kelly Bluebook to evaluate cars.
This is really only of socialogical/cultural interest; how in the world does something get pubished that effectively says nothing.
My cynical gene is twitching, by mere happenstance do there happen to be Federal funds available to assist States at risk from “climate change” related flooding?
Are they measuring SLR in Imperial mm or in American mm? I think they could be right on the money if they are using the right-size mm. If they are using metric mm, they better go back and recalculate.
Whats an American mm?
“Whats an American mm?”
Larger than a metric mm and smaller than an Imperial mm, steverichards1984. The average American will say it’s about -|…..|- that long. (Yes, yes, it also depends on if your browser is set at 100% or 125% as is mine.)
For very large mm, their estimate of SLR is right on the money.
0.08
There are 4 GPS stations surrounding the southern end of Chesapeake Bay which have been active long enough to get a good signal of the land movement.
Subsidence ranges from -1.95 mms/year to -3.82 mms/year in these stations.
As one moves up the Bay to the Washington region, the subsidence rate falls to -0.81 mms/year.
The settling of the Chesapeake Bay impact crater as a result of the 5 km asteroid strike 35.5 million years ago must be so exceedingly small by now that it can be ignored (although there are some earthquakes in northwest Virgina which is probably too far from the impact crater to be caused by it).
Factoring in the acceleration of rise in the sea level, which is not happening, and the acceleration in global warming which is not happening, and then pulling a really scary number right out of the air because we might have read it somewhere, then multiplying the current sea level rise plus subsidence by a factor of ten we get a really scary story that we can use to get funding and advance our political cause.
Funny story: The rivers in NE Oregon are classed at a 5 when filled with snow melt. During cold, dry snaps those same rivers are reduced to now you see them now you don’t trickles. There used to be a yearly river canoe race on the Grande Ronde River. In the 70’s, when we had lots of cold and very dry air, the river got so low my sister and her pals had to hoist their canoe over their heads and tennis-shoe-run the river course. Most hilarious river race ever!
City folks just don’t know how to read a mother nature joke played on us. Pioneer stock folks who still eek out a living in tucked away farming/logging communities are sitting around their illegal wood burning stoves laughing their asses off, liberally tossing around our favorite word (not to mention a favorite beverage),
“idiots.”
You obviously have not been to Henley-on-Todd.
http://www.henleyontodd.com.au/
The NOAA records for the tidal gauge at The Battery, NY, show that there has been no change in the effective sea level rise in about 160 years. Mankind’s activities did not initiate that rise, and we have not changed the rate of rise.
The reasonable assumption for the Virginia people to make is that the historical trends will continue.
I have a house on the water smack in the middle of all this. Quite frankly I would appreciate another 1′ of water under my sailboat at the end of the dock. I can trade in my shoal draft for a standard draft boat giving me a little more speed pinching into the wind as I can carry more sail.
Also since my house actually sits on a 10′ bluff above the water, I’m pretty much protected for at least the next few decades. My neighbor.. not so lucky as the water actually lapped at the corner of his house during Hurricane Isabel.
I did get a notice in the mail from the county about a change in FEMA’s flood maps. I logged on to see how it effected me and the maps were so poor quality and complicated I gave up.
The only truth that emerges from this study is that; Sea level has not risen since 1980. The claim that sea level rises 2 mm per year is an insult to our collective intellengence. You cannot determine 2 mm level in a bathtub much less the restless sea. And the most rediculous depiction is the sea level measuring guage. The guage is attached to land and that is the undoing of any logical deduction because the jump in sea level rise is actually a reflection of the land subsidence in the area. So let us just settle for the first truth which is that the sea level has not been rising over the last 34 years but instead is receding. See; “The Mysterious Receding Seas” by Richard Guy on youtube and on Google.
Detective, ” Based on forensics, we have come to a consensus that the calculated height of the assailant is between 8 inches and 6.6 feet.”
Prosecutor, ” Great, I am sure the judge will allow that”.
Well it is VIMS stating this – not exactly known for their expertise. I live on the middle peninsula, right on the water looking out at the Rappahannock and between the lowest and highest tides nobody can tell if the average sea level is increasing or decreasing. The real issue is that there are concerns about flooding at very high tides in Norfolk. What they don’t say is it’s partly small sea level rise, partly post glacial rebound, largely that downtown Norfolk is built on landfill that is subsiding even faster than the rest of the Chesapeake. They have the same problem of collapsing landfill in Boston, MA BTW.
I got a very good education working for VIMS, then VFL, but have been long concerned with their direction. This was back in the days when our physics teacher asked the class how the Mississippi River flows uphill as a simple introduction to these forces. May respond further when I think a little and check a couple of facts..
Thank you Chris for your on the spot observation. A sea level guage is absolutely useless as a sea level rise indicator because it is connected to a wharf or jetty usually which is connected to the land. So your knowledge of the area land fill clearly points to subsidence of the fill. Regarding Isostatic or Glacial rebound we can also forget that as an issue for nothing like that is occuring or has ever occured. Post Glacial Rebound is a non event and has mislead us from the real issue for two hundred years which is that our Planet earth is growing. As the Planet grows sea levels recede and that is really what is occuring. Volkmar Muller has derived a formula which shows (he thinks) the rate of Glacial Rebound. It is the same rate at which the earth is growing. So Muller has shown the rate of earth expansion purely by mistake for Isostacy does not exist. See “The Mysterious Receding Seas” on Youtube and Google by Richard Guy. It is full time that we investigate the Darwinian observation and misinterpretation which mislead the likes of Jameison and Agassiz to come up with Glacial Rebound. Also let me draw you attention to recent findings in the Himalayas by John Gosse and David Whippe “Finding Faults in the Himalayas” Dalhousie University News Magazine. These findings negate the “collision with India theory” which has always been suspect in my estimation. So we need to re examine Post Glacial Rebound and by Extension the Ice age??
by Richard Guy
Lost in all this is that when one is predicting rates if sea level rise, one must take into account “the chubby factor”. Sea critters displace sea water. Fat critters displace more water than skinny critters. To get a handle on all this, I propose a program to study their eating habits. Once a baseline has been established, we’ll be able to detect shifts in those habits to and from “junk sea food”. Those shifts can be used as relatively near-term precursors to acceleration and deceleration of sea level rates of rise. When we’ve expended all the “chubby factor” program funds, I propose a follow-up study of “sea critter flatulence” in order to tighten the inevitable bands of uncertainty that will arise from the “chubby factor” correlation. Whales don’t just “blow” out the tops of their heads, you know.
So to accurately predict sea level changes you could use the following formula:
Ice melt + water created from burning fossil + water pumped from aquifers + change in reservoir storage + thermal volume change + other large scale chemical water creating processes + comet “deposition” + volume of sea creatures dying + volume of erosion sediments + volume of undersea volcano growth + volume of meteor sea impacts + volume of sea floor tectonic uplift – volume of water used in oil drilling (most of which gets locked away again) – volume of sea creatures used for food – loss of water vapor to space – large scale chemical processes that consume water – volume of tectonic subsidence – water lost to atmosphere (warmer atmosphere, agw or otherwise, holds more water vapor) = approximate volume of sea change
That’s a lot of change to calculate! Did I miss anything?
Ice accumulation on land. The magnitude of ice accretion from snowfall was illustrated by the team which salvaged Glacier Girl from under 268 feet of accumulated ice, 50 years after she landed on the Greenland ice sheet.
Also, most thermal expansion isn’t significant for coastal planning purposes. When water in the upper layer of the ocean expands or contracts due to temperature change, the change in density of the affected water doesn’t cause lateral water flows, doesn’t affect displacement, and doesn’t affect sea-level elsewhere. Instead, as the water’s density decreases and its volume increases, it rises in place, creating a localized “bump” in the ocean. Here’s an illustration:
http://burtonsys.com/climate/iceberg_1521870c_annotated.jpg
What about water displaced by merchant ship, aircraft carriers, sail boats, sewage, flotsam and jetsam etc
[insignificant -mod]
Mikey, if all the boats, ships, submarines, swimmers, and sunken boats, agricultural water and trash were removed from the ocean, how much would SL decline?
Norfolk, VA sees the highest rates of local sea level rise in America, at about 4.57 mm/yr, except for Galveston which is sinking because it is built on fill.
There is an appearance of slight acceleration at Norfolk, however, over the last couple of decades. That appearance is deceptive. It is due to a well-documented ~60yr cycle, which affects sea level on the northern half of the U.S. east coast.
Most of the sea level rise at Norfolk is due to local land subsidence, unrelated to climate or global sea level change. Obviously, nobody expects the subsidence component of sea level rise to accelerate.
Global sea level rise hasn’t accelerated in >80 years, either, and shows no sign of doing so in this century. Boosting atmospheric CO2 from 300 ppm to 400 ppm has had no discernible effect on sea level.
Norfolk should see about 6.5″ of sea-level rise by 2050, and 12″ by 2080.
That’s not exactly a catastrophe. I think the Navy can probably manage to raise their seawalls and piers by a foot over the next 67 years.
From Recurrent Flooding Study for Tidewater Virginia (pg 7):
“Despite the fact that flooding is an issue for almost all respondent localities, less than 1/3 saw sea level rise as contributing to their flooding issues. However, most of them were interested in
learning more about the impacts of sea level rise in their localities.”
There is no significant indication of acceleration of sea level rise in the Norfolk area. If current trends hold the combined sea level rise and subsidence will be similar to the 1.5 foot rise of the last century. That works out to a rise of 3.5 inches over 20 years. NOAA shows the long term trend (since first recording in the late 1920s) as 4.44mm/yr with the most recent 7 years as averaging 4.49mm/yr at Sewell’s Point.
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.g…
The entire sea-level-rise-is-going-to-destroy-Norfolk theme is purely a political ploy. The ugly truth is that Norfolk needs to spend billions to control storm caused floods The belief among leaders in the area is that they are more likely to receive outside dollars if they are perceived as being on the vanguard of the fight against sea level rise.
Willis: that’s the perfect post for which to dust off the old Mark Twain saw:
‘There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.’
Thankyou Daniel. I had forgotten to mention the pumping of ground water that is yet another factor in local subsidence on the lower southern middle peninsula. There has been so much ground water extraction that saltwater intrusion reaches all the way to the to the Chickahominy bridge at Bottoms Bridge, VA (15 miles east of Richmond) and even further east
I cannot cite this tail as I believe that I read the kernel of it in the early 1960’s out of the National
Geographic.
somewhat prior to the American civil war the French got tired of changing their measuring system every time the king died. supposedly it was based on the length of the kings foot and when the king died the new guy had his foot measured and that was the new standard. for some reason or other they got a wild hair and decided to establish a perfect “scientific measurement”. this was to be based on 1-100,000 of the distance between the north pole and the equator and called a METER. so they arrived at a figure based on what we would call marine navigation etc. and decided that their meter would be about that long. (hands in the air as in measuring a fish the day after). ok.
then as advances in navigation occored they had to change the length of the meter……… this happened at roughly the same intervals of the kings prime, ministers, revolutions dying, happenng finally in the late ninteen fifties. there was an expedition to the south pole and one of the things that was important to them was to find the actual center of rotation of the earth (i.e. the south pole). it was supposedly the first use of a satellite (excluding the moon, as I remember it was one of the early shiny balls named after a Russian dog. ) and actually found the spot. they duly planted a flag pole called the boss, he came out and looked at it and probably said “That’s it hunh?” and went back inside out of the cold.
next morning at breakfast the boss says “why don’t you guys go out and check your work.” so they did. possibly a later conversation ensued. “well boss heres the new spot, New Spot where the he!! is the flag you planted yesterday?????? over there. about 70 feet away.” well they ran the calculations every time they turned around for the rest of the local summer. this was a feat of mathematical calculation as this was the day of the old marchant mechanicle calculators (the transistorized shirt pocket versions that we know and love so well cost about $4500 then if you could find one.) and one day one of the brighter of the group pointed out that the larger movements in position more or less conincided with traffic leaving New York New York for labor day holiday fun and games. shortly there after the metrologists held a big convention and decided that an irridum bar with two scratches on it kept in a temperature controlled room was the standard meter and standard of the world. that was in the early sixties.
so the point of this line of bs is, when you use data from centuries ago are you applying corrections for the vairious “adjustments” that various countries, counties, cities, states, bouroughs, dominions, common wealths and not to bright light house keepers applied to the measuring system over the decades and centuries.
you guys scream at each other over a measurement that amounts to less than the thickness of a sheet of paper, are you sure that its what you think it is.
pk
the
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And if you listen to the media reports on how Norfolk is more vulnerable to sea level rise than anywhere else, they manage to leave out the effect of subsidence. To the casual reader, it is all due to climate change. I have posted a few questions on why sea level is higher at Norfolk than anywhere else, but get no response.
The Norfolk area has a very unusual geological history:
http://www.google.com/search?q=chesapeake+bolide
The California coastal commission has a similar report, I submitted a number of comments related to the fact they should include current data and trends, rather than just projections that greatly exceeded current trends. Also that they needed to include the risk that the projection could be wrong.
Having read in this thread that Arrhenius demonstrated the effect of CO2 in a replicable laboratory experiment, I went looking for that experiment. But Arrhenius’s “experiment” seems to be a myth. Arrhenius’s proof is only in his calculations, which were later shown to be flawed.
From NASA’s Earth Observatory:
According to Arrhenius’s calculations, temperatures during the last ice age indicate CO2 levels less than 180ppm, which is clearly absurd.
The first laboratory experiment to determine the effect of CO2 (by J. Koch, assistant to Knut Ångström) showed the atmosphere was already saturated in the absorption bands of CO2 and increasing it would have little effect. This was the “settled science” for many decades.
One of arguments that brought Arrhenius’s hypothesis back in favor was that improved instrumentation showed the absorption bands of CO2 did not overlap H2O in the rarefied upper atmosphere.
(I’m not writing from a expert position of understanding here, just synopsizing a bit of what seems to be a good essay on the evolution of the most recent “settled science” of the CO2 greenhouse effect:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm)
Went to a lecture by Niels Aksel Mörner last week in Oslo. He is one of the worlds experts on sea level rise, having worked on it his entire university career, now retired.
The conclusion of his very enthusiastically presented lecuture, all based on actual observations rather than models, was that a few parts of world are experiencing around 1mm/year while most places are not experiencing anything remotely significant.
He certainly doesn’t trust the official satellite numbers as these have been adjusted to suit the desired result (ie 3mm/year).
You’re right to not trust the satellite altimetry measurements of sea-level. To understand why, I recommend that you watch this lecture by Dr. Soon. He explains the problems with satellite measurement of sea level better than anyone I’ve seen, starting here:
That segment of his lecture is 24 minutes long, starting at the 17:37 point. The link should take you directly to 17:37. But, actually, I recommend watching the whole 58 minute lecture at least once. I promise, you’ll learn a lot.
Isn’t the rule of thumb for planning to prepare for the worst?
“Isn’t the rule of thumb for planning to prepare for the worst?”
Yup, so what’s worse in my back yard; glaciers or palm trees? I’m ready for global warming. Glaciers? Not so much.
I predict a flood of 0 to 50 meters at your house, starting in about 30 minutes. Better grab a few thousand sand bags so that you will be, you know, prepared for the worst.
The worst would be a land grab by local/federal authorities saying you’re no longer allowed to live in your house because of expected climate change.
At what cost?