Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The former regional governor of the Egyptian Nile Delta City of Alexandria, Hany el-Missiry, has rejected accusations that poor civic maintenance of drains was responsible for recent damaging floods, which led to the deaths of at least 6 people. El-Missiry blames Climate Change.
According to Al Jazeera;
… His resignation, which comes less than a year after he took charge of Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, was announced Sunday by a government spokesman amid widespread criticism over the city’s response to the deluge.
“We are drowning in negligence,” read the front-page headline of Al-Youm Al-Sabaa daily newspaper. “The government drowns in Alexandria,” read the banner headline at Al-Shorouk, another daily.
Alexandria’s frail infrastructure, particularly its drainage systems, likely aggravated the flooding and resulted in the deaths of five people who were electrocuted by a fallen power cable, according to local media. The downpour was five times the amount of rain the city normally experiences in all of October.
Some people pointed to climate change as a major culprit. Missiry called the flooding an “environmental catastrophe” shortly before resigning.
Such flooding could become the norm in Alexandria, the World Bank has warned. It put Alexandria among the five cities across the world most at risk of flooding by 2050 as a result of climate change. The other cities the World Bank lists include Barranquilla, Colombia; Naples, Italy; Sapporo, Japan; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. …
I hope you join me in wishing Hany el-Missiry good luck with his next job. I respectfully suggest, that given the political reflexes demonstrated during the Alexandria flood, Hany is a strong candidate for the job of representing Egypt at the upcoming COP21 Paris climate summit.
When a power cable caused bushfires in Australia due to it not being far enough from the ground during a heatwave, the electricity suppliers were the ones that paid compensation.
Climate change was not ‘tested’ in this court, but was alarmingly called outside the courtroom.
Perhaps if it is ‘Climate Change’ in Egypt there will be a class action against anyone who uses coal or gas fired electricity.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-23/judge-approves-black-saturday-class-action-settlement/5984374
One of the big problems with the bushfire referred to was that the Greens clamped down on any backburns, fined people $1000 for picking up dead sticks on the siude of the road, put logs across fire trails and let undergrowth grow too big and too thick, so that the fires could not be contained.
Once the fires got going, they flames and sparks were leaping 30+metres in front of the fire front. One report was 100+m.
SO even though a spark started the fire, it was the bad management that escalated the fire.
The same is true for many of the Spectacular Forest Fires in the Western United States as well. Government policies against the clearing of undergrowth, removal of dead trees, and a general “Green” approach to Forest Management create “Super” Firestorm scenarios. Drought can and has made such situations worse, but claims of “Climate Change” pale in the face of Forest Mismanagement.
Managed forest are not necessarily healthy, nor do they grow back in healthy fashion when management is stopped. It is natural for forests to burn to the ground from time to time. Without those fires the seeds of some pine species will not germinate. Old, diseased, and pest ridden trees are consumed in the flames to make room for the young healthy trees. If you are stupid enough to build a house, or worse, a town in the middle of a modern, managed, then abandoned, forest you may win a Darwin award. If you are twice stupid and allow the leftist greenies in your state to dictate policies based on ignorance and a desire to drive you from that home, you are double stupid. If you want to live in a western forest then have the guts to stand up to green bullies and fight against policies that ensure your house or town is going up in flames one day.
I repeat, forest fires are a normal and necessary occurrence in western pine forests. Pine forests in a natural state have trees spaced further apart than happens when they are managed. Under natural conditions forest fires are less ferocious, tho deadly. The only way to have reasonably safe dwellings and towns in these areas is to keep a large clear area between your dwelling and the forest, obviously. Replacing shingle roofs with modern aluminum ones will also decrease your chance of losing your home.
In Northern Arizona, there were some areas left to grow back naturally for study over the last few decades. Regrowth is very slow and new trees are sparse.
This happened in Oregon more than once this season: Fire starts. USFS send crew (1 or 2 people) to “Watch it.” Fire grows -can be seen from towns. Logging crew starts
fighting fire-told to leave by USFS Management- fire at that point blows up-then finally calls for backup..
What?
Almost everyone here in the UK lives in the middle of a vast managed forest.
The forest has been managed by using an age old technique of forest management called “cutting it all down”. i.e. we didn’t “leave it to nature” because – because we live here.
Get used to it, eco-tards. Shit happens.
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, And we are also the managers of forest.
We build dams and we concrete over deserts to build indoor ski slopes.
We cut down trees and we go to the lavatory.
On Wednesdays, we go shopping and have buttered scones for tea.
Let us say that a person buys a house in a managed forest and they are then incinerated with their children because eco-tards have obstructed sensible clearance of trees.
I do not think that such a person should be blamed for not anticipating that eco-tards would allow heaps of sticks to pile up for miles around their home.
It may be possible that the house has stood for 100 years without formerly being burnt to cinders.
But now, the ideological bullying of eco-tards can destroy their lives.
And nobody expects the damage imposition…It’s chief enemy is surprise. Surprise and fear.
Two, enemies… (Stop this, it’s silly).
Thank you for your insight.Most people don’t know that you can’t clear trails with out a fine.What ever you do is not the right thing state by state.By doing the right thing (shrubs & or dead stuff) a ranger will fine you.They’ll make you pay for your insight,this might cause a fire. Then again,the hacks in CA. knew a bad day was coming and want to save a fish as millions of gallons of fresh water go’s out to the Pacific Ocean.
yep. just like the Sheehans in Victoria – Australia.
The green local government fined them $50,000 for putting a fire break around their house. Subsequently a fire came through and the Sheenan’s house was the only one left standing. The bureaucrats and the politicians refused to refund the fine.
The insurance company should have paid it for them in my view, given the payout that didn’t need to be made.
greenies are complete fools.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/fined-for-illegal-clearing-family-now-feel-vindicated-20090212-85bd.html
A U.S. blimp went across P.A and shut down 150.000 people.There is havoc and chaos in that state.Thank GOD the gov’t was in charge to take care of the problems and damage that this caused.By the way ,it does show that mistakes happen.The Fed. never see’s a mistake,it’s a failure of maintenance! Don’t forget that’s why they pay about $80.000 a person to keep the starters.Never mind the benefits.AND U pay taxes! Feel small.
Shades of “Superstorm” Sandy.
Same story, same root cause, different names.
No . Sandy was a massively destructive storm not equaled in the area since I think it was 1938 .
I visited my old place at the end of Peck Slip in lower Manhattan since , and while the slip flooded twice during hurricanes in the 1980s , Sandy flooded at least 2 meters higher than those events .
Sandy was a 100 year storm, no doubt about it, roughly equal in strength to the storms in 1938 and 1821. Plus, hitting at high tide compounded the problem.
However, the real issue was that NY and NJ weren’t prepared for it. There was a lot more construction with far less drainage and floodplains, so there was a lot more damage.
However, there is no evidence that it was caused or even made worse by climate change in any way.
Sandy combined with two other weather systems, one from the north and one from the west. It was the combination of all of them that led to the heavy damage.
Not going to happen. Ethiopia is making sure she controls downstream water flows. And that will be a big problem when the dam is built.
Egypt is rightly concerned about up-water damming, since Egypt has such a long history associated with the Nile and upon which its fortunes were built.. There will be a lot of tension, and it will be interesting to see whether the UN (or some other inter governmental body) gets involved in ensuring that this valuable resource is equitably distributed to all countries through which the Nile flows.
The problem is that the UN, as well as all other international bodies are both corrupt and powerless.
So would one be correct in saying that a state of permanent drought in this part of the world would disprove AGW?
No.
From the article:
“Such flooding could become the norm in Alexandria, the World Bank has warned. It put Alexandria among the five cities across the world most at risk of flooding by 2050 as a result of climate change.”
Another claim that will never be proven by any one alive today, all the people (“experts”, “scientists”) that make these statements will be dead and long forgotten when the proof comes in no matter which way it will go.
When are people ever going to admit that we as humans have little or no influence on global climate? I understand that at local levels there will be “micro” weather pattern changes ( Lakes created by hydro dams, UHI’s) but globally the effect on CLIMATE is barely measurable. Anywhere.
We’re all going to be dead in 35 years?
Actually 21 years when Apophis hits Earth.
“Another claim that will never be proven by any one alive today, all the people (“experts”, “scientists”) that make these statements will be dead and long forgotten when the proof comes in no matter which way it will go.”
I agree with most of you statement, but really, 2050 is only about 34 years from now.
True, but I don’t expect to make it to 104 🙂 However, 10 billion others will. I expect there will be another catastrophic “end of the world” scenario by then. In my generation, it was “duck and cover”.
Many of these ecoloon “scientists” are 25yo with a worthless degree in enviro science that they thought was going to save the world but actually only qualifies them for EIS assessments on mining applications. And they spent their uni trying to shut down mining.
The senior climatologists, from Lindzen on, are lukewarmers.
I will be 100 years old in 2050, if I can make it that far. I’ll make a note as a reminder, so I do not forget to check if this prediction comes true or not.
Sounds like a re-run of the whole Somerset Downs flooding fiasco. It wasn’t their incompetence not dredging the waterways, it was *evil* Climate Change…
You mean the ‘Somerset Levels’.
The other cities the World Bank lists include Barranquilla, Colombia; Naples, Italy; Sapporo, Japan; and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. …I guess they forgot: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, London, Copenhagen, Hamburg, New York, Washington, Tokyo and all large cities at current or below sea level right now, Oh right Venice,
nice case of CYA.
New Orleans?
Is sinking man and I don’t wanna swim – The Tragically Hip
What about Bumf—k, Egypt? Heard it mentioned many times, never been there in person, but a lot of people, many times, said we were there or going there. Sounds like if anyplace is gonna get destroyed by CAGW, that would be the place. So why isn’t it listed as well?
(Snipped. Please, no f-words here. Thanks. -mod.)
Hi Mod. Could you please delete the 2 copies below the first one you snipped? At Oct 28, 12:52 and the one below. Please.
What about Bumf—k, Egypt? If anyplace were to be destroyed by climate change that would be it. I’ve heard many times in my life that I or we were there or going there, but don’t recall the actual place. It should certainly be added to the list.
What about Bumfu**ed, Egypt? It should most certainly be on the list. I’ve heard many times in my life that I / we were there or going there, but don’t recall the actual place…Just that it wasn’t pleasant. If any place on Earth gets destroyed by climate change, that would be one of them. Just hope you’re not there.
AGW a smokescreen for incompetence perhaps?
andrewmharding ,
Incompetence applies to some folks. But there are also the green eco-religionists, and the rent-seeking scientists. They all have their own motive for supporting the ‘dangerous AGW’ scare.
I can understand selling out for money. I don’t condone it, but I understand the motivation. I don’t really understand the others. As a skeptic, if the facts warrant a certain point of view, that’s enough. Because for skeptics, it’s the knowledge that’s important, not a claim to being right.
Skeptics are always right, because we agree with what the real world is telling us. If/when things change, skeptics are willing to change their minds. That’s the main difference between scientific skeptics (the only honest kind of scientists) and climate alarmists. For their various reasons, the climate alarmist crowd either cannot or will not change their minds, no matter how many facts contradict their belief.
I always like to read articles like this replacing ‘Climate Change’ with ‘Angry Gods.’ That would have made sense 4,500 years ago to the ancient Egyptians. It also had about the same scientific basis as Climate ‘science’ has today.
Anyone who has been to Egypt for an extended period will know that the problem is infrastructure, not rain. Nothing is designed properly, nothing is built properly, and nothing works. Most of the high-rise hotels and apartments have no fire escapes, so will the next ‘towering inferno’ be blamed on global warming too?
The main drainage system in Egypt is the roads themselves. Last I was there they had built a new urban dual-carriageway – a no expense spared government corruption (construction) project that made a lot of people rich. Only problem? No drains, and at the bottom of the natural drainage system. At the first downpour the new road was unter a meter of water and impassible.
Why are Western leaders so eager and willing to absolve Eastern regimes from their endemic corruption and incompetence, and blame it on the weather? Are they being paid by the bottomless Saudi slush-fund, to paint Eastern regimes in a favourable light? You have to bear in mind that two of the highest ranking administrators/advisors in the US administration are Easternised, as is the gate-keeper of the Republical party. So much of US policy is currently being filtered through an Eastern prism.
R
It seems de Nile runs deep through Alexandria.
+100
lol
I think de Nile is even deeper in the White House… 😉
Most political elites do not believe that non-Europeans should be held to the same standards. They honestly believe that it would be racist to expect them to stop being corrupt.
Such flooding could become the norm in Alexandria, the World Bank has warned. It put Alexandria among the five cities across the world most at risk of flooding by 2050 as a result of climate change.
Low-lying Alexandria is also vulnerable to increased salination, or saltwater intrusions on agricultural lands and freshwater resources, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The city’s beaches and waterfront — both major tourist draws and vital parts of Alexandria’s economy — will be heavily affected by flooding because most of the hotels, camps and youth hostels are close to the shoreline, the IPCC said.
http://www.unesco.org/csi/pub/papers2/alex.pdf
Figure 1 Shows the present shoreline and Old Shore Line of Alexandria – A causeway known as the Heptastadion, was constructed to link the mainland to the island of Pharos, thus creating two remarkable
harbours: Portus Magnus to the east and Eunostus to the west. Within the innermost corner of the Eastern Harbour, close to the Heptastadion, a structure known as the Kibotos was built, and functioned as a lock connecting the sea with Lake Mariout to the south. The lake was in turn connected to the River Nile by canals, thus providing a link for maritime shipping to the inland waterways of Egypt and greatly increasing the possibilities for transport and commerce.
The causeway is now filled in and there is more dry land that sea. But that is only after 2000 years of sea level rise.
dumped nearly 10 inches of rain in two days last week, killing six people
resulted in the deaths of five people who were electrocuted by a fallen power cable,
They don’t have a flooding problem, they have an electrical problem.
Not climate changing, but very poor management of the Aswan High Dam and channels.
Alexandria- Mediterranean shoreline. Check:
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_global_station.htm?stnid=290-110
Alexandria – Nile Delta-Sediments are sensible for settling due to groundwater depression.
I read years ago that the Nile Delta is subsiding because the annual deposition of silt carried by the NIle flood which kept the delta level above sea level has largely stopped due to dams upstream. This does not stop alarmists blaming what is just a change in RELATIVE sea level on to “climate change”. The subsiding delta is truly an anthropogenic effect.
Just like New Orleans. Same problem at any delta of any river that ceases being allowed to rejuvenate itself.
Exactly. A quick web search leads me to believe that Alexandria is sinking due to subsidence about twice as fast as sea level is rising and in places it’s sinking five times that fast. Maybe more. They also have earthquakes that have caused the place to sink a couple of meters in a few tens of seconds in the past.
You bet they are in trouble. But climate change is probably the least of their problems.
The governor is wrong on several points: a) it is the will of Allah, and b) flooding in the Nile delta used to be a good thing: the old Egyptians were extremely worried if there was no flooding, and c) the real problem is overpopulation: the nile valley and delta can, with the best agricultural techniques available, only support about 60 million people; the Eqyptian population stands at 85M, is fed on massive and cripling food imports, and is projected to double by 2050 (!)
>>best agricultural techniques available
Best techniques are in short supply in Egypt. When you fly over the Delta at night, it is like flying over a swarm of fireflies. In other words, the average ‘farm’ can only be a couple of hectares, and that is not conducive to ‘best agricultural techniques available’.
Indeed. But that’s the point. At the moment Egypt can only feed 40M, the rest lives on imported staple (from the US and the EU primarily much of it as aid). But even with best practices it can only feed 60M because of the limited availability of arable land.
>>best agricultural techniques available
Best techniques are in short supply in Egypt. When you fly over the Delta at night, it is like flying over a swarm of fireflies. In other words, the average ‘farm’ can only be a couple of hectares, and that is not conducive to ‘best agricultural techniques available’.
http://footage.framepool.com/shotimg/qf/646755522-burro-oveja-cabalgar-canal.jpg
Is an angry god punishing the area again?
What did they do to PO Obama?
I thought it was the drought not the floods causing an issue. I am confused.
It was the hottest, driest flood evah!, David.
Needed, one new keyboard. Morning tea and keyboards don’t mix well!
All deltas that are also cities have the identical problem of not being able to renew their base thanks to dams and other schemes to prevent deposits of new dirt. Instead, they all slowly sink below sea level. The Netherlands went further and 500 years ago, began to deliberately take over below-sea level land and building dikes, etc.
All this, right at the coldest part of the Little Ice Age! So now that it is warmer, they whine about water levels. NYC, for example, was founded right at the apex of…the same Little Ice Age ditto, New Orleans settled by the French.
I recall Xerxes being a story about a king who ordered the seas to retreat…
A point: New York city is built on bedrock (Manhattan Schist), fill, and well compacted Cretaceous sediments. If the Hudson has a delta (and I don’t think it does) it’d be near the head of navigation at Fort Edward almost 200km North of NYC. New York City’s problem to the extent it has one is that they’ve built too much infrastructure too close to sea level without any provision to protect stuff underground (tunnels, basements) from occasional large storms. That’s bad engineering/inadequate permitting procedures, not for the most part climate change.
Similar happenings all over the world. Delta, BC (got its name from…) and Richmond BC are below high tide on the Fraser River Delta on unconsolidated silt. The storm drains have flap valves on the outlets so they can drain at low tide. The farmland that used to be rejuvenated by spring freshets is now all behind constantly subsiding dykes. One good earthquake and poof, it will sink into the sea.
When I was surveying down along the Fraser River, we had to stop when trains or heavy trucks went by as the ground shook too much to do accurate work. The trains are constantly going “uphill” on level ground since the ground sinks and rebounds under the weight of the wheels. Somewhere in my files I have some nice video of that. Always amazed me that the ground was so flexible.
Development can be managed of course – no basements in Richmond – all houses are built on floating slabs – truly floating.
Law of unintended consequences will get us in the end I expect. A 1000 year flood on the Fraser for example. Or the Nile.
5x the October average, you say? Let’s examine that claim.
Egypt’s dry season is summer. October is just on the shoulder of that. Rain averages 10mm, so the “torrential, unprecedented” rains totalled 50mm. Just 2″. Contrast that to Corsicana, TX which had 17.5″ yesterday – no one is believed to have died.
Should Egypt be able to cope with 2″ or rain? Yes – while unusual in Oct it’s quite normal in Dec and Jan. Unless the city only rolls out infrastructure in Nov and then packs it up after winter, they should be well and truly equipped for normal (if unseasonal) rain.
I have a dog. You can be his very best friend, ever if you have food. I have money, want some? Of course you do. A very convenient way to get money… it wasn’t incompetent built projects, it was climate change. …. a mind set 180 degrees from western thinking. Electricity? Health and wellness? Education? The only thing holding them back is that they are stuck in the 7th century. Somehow, the left got it into their heads that they are superior? We can’t say anything against sharia law. I got my degree, I showed up and paid off the right people. Mind boggling how stupid and ignorant some of these .. qualified .. people are. When you have someone that has a master’s in economics from an ivy league school, and doesn’t know the basics, like supply and demand …, makes you wonder. (Politics or money)
Why you’re not a climate scientist! How dare you question CAGW! (sarc)
The past is rife with climate change. There is evidence all over this planet of catastrophic events from mega droughts to earth quakes to meteor impacts to glaciations and warming and flooding. Life has always adapted to changing environments. The seemingly increased rainfalls in Africa since 2005 has been greening the Sahara and also of note is the Atacama Desert bloom going on now after flooding rains earlier this year. Snowfall in the Middle East has been occurring more frequently since 2005 as well. Many situations can be attributed to mankind, like the clear cutting of rain forests in any location has proven to cause erosion and in domes cases drastically altering rain fall patterns. Clear cutting any forests appear to do the same as vast tracts of trees and vegetation release aerosols conducive to cloud formation. Persistent semi permanent drought regions with hundreds of millions of humans getting rains they are not accustomed to or prepared for should be rejoicing! Drought parched land will flood with even relatively small amounts of rain, just 1 or 2 inches of rain in a day will cause flash flooding and wadi’s to rage and washes to flood. I hope the rains keep soaking the Middle East and greening parched regions of the world. All that oxygen from new vegetation will only be a good thing. Agricultural benefits are obvious.
We studied the Nile Delta when I was at school. We looked at the problems caused by the Aswan Dam, such as the blocking of the annual flood that brought fertile mud and silt down the Nile which used to enrich the surrounding farm land but also build the delta. It also seemed that the sea water was invading the ground water in the delta also, plus the spread of water borne diseases because the annual flood used to ‘flush’ the land and this no longer happened.
These lessons were in the late 60s!
I would hope that how river deltas are formed is still taught in schools as part of Geography.
Stephen Skinner–If I recall those old lessons, Egypt was called the “Gift of the Nile” because of nutrient-rich soil left by the annual flooding. You’d think that a society would know how to cope with an annual meteorological cycle that has been recurring for thousands of years.
The temptation is to control the immediate threat, in this case to build dams, but over the long run nature may take back its “gift”. People may start complaining about Anthropogenic Climate Cancellation.
There are fish ladders built around dams. Egypt can build a silt conveyor system to dump the captured silt past the dam. ;^D…..
Although Nasser’s High Dam significantly increased the production of electricity, which assisted in Egypt’s industrialisation, the loss of silt meant that, for the first time in history, Egyptian farmers had to make use of imported fertilisers. As Stephen Skinner rightly says, one of the consequences of Nasser’s High Dam was the almost total elimination of the silt that had been carried downstream during the flooding season and deposited not just on the river banks but also in the sea..
Alexandria lies at the Western corner of the Nile Delta and one of the effects of the changed river pattern is that less sand is now washed up on its beaches, many of which have been at significantly reduced in size and some of which have disappeared altogether. Other Nile Delta beach resorts such as Damietta and Rosetta have faced the same problem.
While these adverse changes were forecast by irrigation engineers, and ignored, before the Dam was constructed, now that they have occurred Climate Scientists and politicians are attributing them to rising sea levels due to CAGW. Unfortunately for that hypothesis it does not explain why for more than one hundred years until the late sixties the beaches were unchanged but, within a few years of the completion of the dam, they started to disappear. Did increased levels of CO2 only start to affect sea levels elsewhere after 1970?
Typo “some cases drastically” sorry
What? Are all those Sudanese glaciers melting?
Alexandria average monthly precipitation:
El Nino related increases in rainfall in Egypt:
http://www.mdpi.com/atmosphere/atmosphere-04-00365/article_deploy/html/images/atmosphere-04-00365-g004-1024.png
And the bottom Dollar is that increased forcing of the climate by more CO2 or higher solar increases positive NAO/AO which is directly associated with La Nina and not El Nina.
ulriclyons, The above graph is NOT valid. If you look at the same site it also says they have 48 days of rain in September on average. If you go to http://www.worldweatheronline.com/Alexandria-weather-averages/Al-Iskandariyah/EG.aspx it says they have about 10mm in Oct on average. I suspect the above graph is the amount of rain this year, not the average as the graph claims.
Correct, thanks. The El Nino signal in Egypt rainfall is very strong though.
“Other dams built on the Nile throughout the 20th century further reduced the sediment reaching the delta but it was only with the building of the High Dam that the Nile all but ceased to wash sediments into the Mediterranean. Today the Nile no longer has a true delta”
Everybody knows that the sea level in the Nile Delta is slowly rising, not because of the AGW but due to the huge weight of the Nile sediments that makes the rocky substratum sinking in the Earth mantle. The same phenomenon can be observed in the Rhône Delta region too.
Exactly how did global warming cause those power lines to fall into the water?
Global warming is like Homer Simpson, it can do anything.
The Nile has been flooding forever. There are hieroglyphs describing the periodic nature of the flood and ancient high water markers carved into the banks of the Nile. The entire Egyptian economy and its ancient prosperity was reliant on the floods. Even the sphinx is thought to be much older than “Egypt” and its body’s misshapen-ness was due to repeated exposure to Nile or even Mediterranean flood waters. Nothing new here.
What else is new. Local officials underinvest in infrastructure, bad things happen, blame something beyond local control. Hurricane Katrina anyone. Super storm Sandy. California drought. It’s a very old trick.
“The Mediterranean sea level (MSL) has changed in recent decades, decreasing from 1960 to 1990 (Gomis et al., 2008) and then increasing from 1993 to 1999 (Cazenave et al., 2001). Cazenave et al. (2001) demonstrated that, except in the northern Ionian sub-basin, the sea level increased throughout the Mediterranean Sea between 1993 and 1999, and the authors expect this trend to increase in the future. Criado-Aldeanueva et al. (2008) found that the MSL changed, but insignificantly, over the 1999–2005 period. More recently, Tsimplis et al. (2013) found that the MSL rose significantly from 1993 to 2011 by approximately 3.0 cm decade−1. Finally, Shaltout and Omstedt (2014) supported Tsimplis et al. (2013), finding that throughout the 1993–2010 period, the MSL displayed a significant positive trend of 2.6 cm decade−1.”
Looks like it’s AMO related.
I grew up in Illinois down where the “corduroy roads” were built during the western expansion of the United States. We maintained those ditches and pipes, we maintained them big-time. If they clogged the town would drown in the rains.
It’s the drainage people, not “climate change”
Who would like a red herring sandwich? I quit counting them, plus the rampant speculation. The people who died were electrocuted. How about blaming Edison and Tesla? Or 3rd world wiring. How does rain become rising sea level? The flooding was caused by a freak rainstorm, not the incursion of the Mediterranean. One occurrence does not equal a pattern or proof of any changes in climate. When it happens again next year, and the year after, etc., then you can start to infer a change in the climate. Climate change is a handy scapegoat. Come to think of it, Climate Change is responsible for me not getting laid! That’s it! I’ve found the answer!!!
Floods in Egypt are cyclical in history to ancient times and beyond mans occupation of the area. In the end floods will dump organic laden silt and increase the fertility of the region If man has gotten in the way of this process, oh well. Ancient Egyptians went with the flow, as it were, and farms thrived there using ancient irrigation techniques. This is probably true today in some regions.
One of the underlying benefits of “climate change” for government leaders is that it is a universal excuse for incompetence, not to mention a convenient cover up for corruption.
Seems like climate change is to blame for everything over their in the middle east…
Including the Syrian Civil War (if you can even call it that):
http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/charlotte-church-climate-change-caused-syrian-war-2015210
“From 2006 to 2011 they experienced one of the worst droughts in its history, which of course meant there were water shortages and crops weren’t growing,” she continued. “There was a mass migration from rural areas of Syria into the urban centers, which put more strain and resources were scarce et cetera, which apparently did contribute to the conflict there today.”
First of all the drought was partially caused by extremely poor irrigation systems which accounts for 90% of their water consumption. And second, only 1.3 million were affected by it from which they received 98% of the aid they needed in assistance to overcome it:
http://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syria-drought-response-plan
It is really quite simple. Poor planning, historical mismanagement, corruption, lousy engineering and ignorance do not qualify for some of the $100B that could come out of Paris. Only climate change/global warming qualifies. This bloke was only putting his oar in the excess water.
Mark WW says: “The problem is that the UN, as well as all other international bodies are both corrupt and powerless.”
Ancient Mariner says: “Thank God!”.
Bumf—, Egypt?
(Snipped, this is a family site. -mod)
I always thought it was in Idaho. (Or was it named after the one in Egypt, like St Petersburg FL et al?)
The recent rise in bogus studies in the Muslim world are related to the UN call for more claims from an inclusive process of claiming damage from more regions. It is a knock off the cries from Jerry Brown and other governors for extra U.S. Federal disaster funds for unrelated local uses. At some point they expect a payoff from a bagman.
It’s called televangelism.
And apparently it’s extremely effective against the masses:
https://www.google.com/search?q=televangelism&gws_rd=ssl
Oops, wrong link…that was the google search for televangels but you all should watch this:
It’s so akin to cawgism….
There are a couple of references to the Somerset Floods in the comments above.
As an interesting update on this topic.
It turns out that recently some genius decided to create a computer model run of the events and see what would have happened if dredging had been carried out prior to the winter rains:
“Astonishingly, the model discovered that if the dredging work done since the floods had been done before the rain started, and temporary pumps brought in earlier at the height of the disaster, then almost all the homes flooded in the worst-hit areas would have probably escaped intact.”
So two years of analysis and a computer model later – and they are finally beginning to realize that local people and local drainage engineers and farmers, Christopher Booker, Richard North, @Paul Homewood, and yours truly WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG.
Of course, we knew we were right, without any cause for doubt. Because, quite honestly this was patently obvious to any keen observer with a vague grasp of how water behaves.
Some people clearly need an expensive computer model to reveal to them the same mysteries which are revealed to others by the processes silently at work in their own minds.
http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Better-pumps-dredging-stop-floods/story-27574691-detail/story.html
Will Egypt be like the Persian Gulf? Unbearable with all the heat waves, so will Egyptians have to worry about being flooded out when they’ve already been cooked by all that boiling rain falling?
One for the economists among us I suppose. Do they sandbag or roof their cities now?
There was also a time when the ‘settled science’ held that the Nile floods were caused by the appearance of the star Sirius (aka Sothis, or the Dog Star) in the Eastern Sky just before dawn.