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.
Sea level rise (minus subsidence) comes from thermal expansion of water AND water added through melting of ice that is at a higher altitude than the sea. Water flows downhill. So all this melt-water moves closer to the center of the Earth. Now think of an ice skater during a spin; when she brings her arm in closer to her center of rotation her rotation speed increases.
Using this logic I will say that SLR from melt-water makes the day shorter.
Ah. September in D.C. when the congressional committee mark-up, mod-up and jack-up budgets for the all important start of the next Fiscal Year on year 1 October. This year is a doozy with so many Democrats in the House and Senate scrambling to get deals made and votes cast in order to get out of Dodge to fight their local re-election battles before the November elections. Possible the best solution from Congress is to shut-down, make a hasty pass of a continuing resolution, then leave.
For Virginia no doubt that the locals are feeding their Congressional Reps with honey straight from Heaven in order to get the Pork on 1 October.
Fall in D.C. Ah the leaves all around, diesel fumes in the air and the aroma of Foggy Bottom. Smells like victory.
Ha ha
@SandyInLimousin:
1×10^12 barrels oil x (1.5 barrels H20 / barrel oil) x (158 liters / barrel) x (1000 cm^3 / liter) x (1 m / 100cm)^3 x (1km / 1000 m)^3 x (earth sea surface / 3.6×10^8 km^2) x (10^6 mm/ km) = .66 mm total rise in earth sea surface level for the entire period due to the oil combustion, way less than 5mm / yr over that period.
There are 18 stations in PSMSL with full data for 57 years between 1957 and 2013.
Average acceleration of sea level change at these sites for this timespan is zero (0.0015 mm/year²).
Average rate of change itself would be meaningless, of course, because of isostatic rebound, but land movements are pretty linear on this timescale, so acceleration is not tainted.
57 years is three times the Metonic cycle, relative position of the Sun &. Moon recurs almost exactly at any specific site on Earth, therefore tidal effects do not influence acceleration over this period.
Another big WUWT fail. This one starts as soon as Willis incorrectly assumes that sea level rise would be roughly uniform around the world. It would not be.
Most people have a mental model of a bathtub when thinking how sea level would rise. But due to gravity effects and isostatic rebound, the rise would be anything but uniform. In fact, as a thought experiment, if the entire Greenland ice sheet were to suddenly catastrophically collapse, global sea levels on *average* would rise about 8 metres, if I recall correctly. But right at Greenland, sea level would *FALL* by over 100 metres.
And the luck of the draw, once you factor all these effects in from all around the globe – the expected bullseye for maximum sea-level rise turns out to be the U.S. east coast.
You could look it up.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2010/05/gravity-of-glacial-mel
George, two strong suggestions. First, anything read in Harvard magazine should be taken with salt. ( As a thrice graduate, I have more than sufficient grounds to assert that). Second, you have no clue about the Earth’s gravimetric geodesic, as mapped by GRACE. If you think a bullseye is painted on the US east coast, you must be from Boston or NYC (also a good Harvard inference).
My advice: if you really believe this twaddle, move inland at any cost. Because China and India do not care.
George, I saw no such assumption in the post by Willis. Your assumption that Greenland would pop up out to the ocean like a cork is curious though.
Eisenbach is assuming roughly even SLR globally – that’s evident because he keeps looking at global datasets and comparing to Virginia.
Most of the fall in SLR in Greenland will not be due to istostasy, but due to the relaxed local gravity effects of the ice sheet on surrounding sea – effects which would dominate as far away as Newfoundland and Scotland. This is non-controversial stuff, Newton under the apple tree stuff. Pro tip: check the relevant primary-source literature.
So, without checking, I’m sure all these coastal cities have already upgraded their building codes and are requiring all new construction be built further from the shoreline and well above 10 feet at high tide. Any remodeling of a coastal building should not be closer to the water. That’s the sustainable thing to do. Ya think?
Indeed. Also properties that are in imminent peril will lose value. So These “Beach House sell-offs” should be coming anytime now.
Unfortunately you can’t ever get an accurate shore line level datum because the land mass goes up and down with continental drift.Before you even consider the tectonic plates under the oceans.
So forget about ever measuring the sea level accurately.
This so called settled science on CO2, reading the details of the lab experiment it seems to me this Arrhenius character has left out convection, as the molecule of CO2 collects the energy and vibrates it will occupy a larger volume and get lighter, while in this non representative tube it won’t matter in our atmosphere the CO2 and any other gas with it will rise and carry the heat away. I did this in school before I was 16, how old are these scammers????
“…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. ”
Uhhh…*how* can two locations…about 14km apart, have such different changes in sea level change? The 14km distance is from Sewells Point to the Elizabeth River split at downtown Portsmouth/Norfoik. The Portsmouth measurement could be up to 5km closer to Sewells Point – does anyone know where the Portsmouth, Va. tidal gauge is? Sewells Point, BTW, is at the tip of the Norfolk Naval Station just at the opening to the Chesapeake Bay where the James River & Elizabeth River meet.
Still don’t buy it.
Jeff
nuts…Portsmouth/Norfolk
Thanks, Willis. Good post.
Highly adjusted results should always be contrasted with observations, the best available. Mörmer seems like a good antidote for University of Colorado.
U of A professor Yin addressed this issue for the middle Atlantic states in 2013. He attributed higher measured sea levels to gulf stream and Atlantic ocean dynamics, creating a short-term ‘swell’ from Hatteras to New England. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL057992/abstract
@ur momisugly pk: September 14, 2014 at 9:55 am
“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. ”
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HA, me thinks your above comment also applies to all of the thermometer based Surface Temperature Records.
Just a few years ago I heard someone in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation bemoaning the prospect that “everything’s going downhill from here.” I can only interpret that to mean that there is a belief that the Virginia Sea Level is already higher than it is in neighboring states. 😉
It always amazes me that “scientists” and especially “green activists” ignore humankinds ability to adapt. I suppose it’s their inherent need to feel “in control”. Archeology seems to be littered with examples of what were sea ports that are now either high and dry or, the reverse, underwater.
Thanks again for a good read.
Search for acceleration…
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/the-search-for-acceleration/
Sea level rise – the movie…
http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/sea-level-data-set-to-music-yeah-thats-right/
This paper (September 2014) reconstructs sea level change along North Carolina coast. Estimates current sea level rise along North Carolina as 1.71 mm/yr since 1845 and no acceleration during the last 1000 yrs. Significantly less than the Virginia assessment, even with slightly modeled ‘swell’ as proposed by Yin (see above).http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033589414000970
Thanks, Robert. That figure is not far from my estimate above of 2 mm/year of actual sea level rise (after adjustment for glacial rebound/sediment compaction).
w.
Sea level is not rising. The land is not rebounding. Glacial Rebound does not and never existed. The Ice age is also suspect. Now where does that leave us? The Earth is growing, Expanding if you will. The Seas are receding, Sea levels are falling no rising. Darwin was wrong and so was Jameison and Agassiz. So why do we keep on after 200 years spouting the same outdated Darwinian doctrine of “Raised Beaches”? It is time we separate the forest from the trees. Until we admit that the seas are not rising and until we debunk Isostacy and Glacial Rebound we are going nowhere. Richar Guy See the Video series “The Mysterious Receding Seas” Youtube and Google.
“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.”
4.4 mm x 50 years = 220 mm == 8.6 inches at Sewells Point VA
All sea level rise is local and relative to the land at that place. (In other words, it doesn’t matter if the sea has come up, the land has gone down, or both — the local relative sea level has thus “risen” as far as the land is concerned.)
The lower level of their prediction, 8 inches, thus seem reasonable, even without any increase in the rate of absolute sea level rise.
For those interested in more information about East Coast sea level rise, it can be found in two of my previous posts:
From the Scientific Urban Legend Department: ‘AGW Sea Level Rise Made Sandy More Destructive’
and
What to do about The Flood Next Time