Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [see Update at the end]
I thought I might write about how I research a subject. Over at Dr. Judith’s excellent website, she periodically puts out a list of interesting papers that she has come across. This time it was “Week In Review: Water Edition”. She gave a link to an article from a Tampa Bay news station headlined Study: Sea level rise may severely impact Tampa by 2040.
Why did I pick this article? To me it’s obviously bogus. Sea level is rising around the world at something like 8-12 inches (200 – 300 mm) per century. It’s only twenty-four years until 2040, call it a quarter century. So by then Tampa will likely see on the order of 2 – 3 inches of sea level rise. That will not have a “severe impact” anywhere. So I went off to read the article.
Reading the article, I said “Well, there’s yer problem”, viz:
The study was based on sea level rise predictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the findings of the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Board.
The advisory board concluded that the region could experience sea level rise between a half-foot to 2.5 feet of sea level rise by 2050.
Two and a half feet of sea level rise over the next thirty-four years, a third of a century?? That doesn’t pass the laugh test. Consider that to do that we’d have to AVERAGE a sea level rise of seven and a half feet per century. So I set off to unearth the “findings of the Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Board”.
From there the trail got murkier. But after several false starts, I came across a Tampa Bay City Council Agenda that referred in passing to the report by the Advisory Board. With that I was able to track it down. It is called “Recommended Projection of Sea Level Rise in the Tampa Bay Region“.
The report starts out reasonably, showing the longest local historical sea level record, from the adjacent city of St. Petersburg.
Regarding this chart they say:
Data measured at the St. Petersburg tide station shows that water levels in Tampa Bay have increased approximately 6.6 inches or approximately 1 inch/decade (see Figure 2).
That’s all quite reasonable, and at ten inches (250 mm) per century the rise is right in the general world range I gave above. So I continue reading and find this:
The final parameter, projections of how much sea level will change globally over the next 100 years, is derived from experts engaged in climate science.
Uh-oh, sez I. We are now in the hands of “experts engaged in climate science”, so hide the good silver and watch your wallets … I continue reading …
The 2012 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Technical Report, Global Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States National Climate Assessment, was produced as a coordinated, interagency effort to identify nationally agreed upon estimates for global SLR. The report synthesized the scientific literature on global SLR, included input from national experts in climate science, physical coastal processes and coastal management, and produced a set of four plausible SLR scenarios that can easily be adjusted for regional conditions throughout the United States.
Plausible? Er … um … I continue reading …
Future SLR estimates can be calculated for the Tampa Bay region, integrating data from the local St. Petersburg tide gauge, using a flexible, well-supported tool developed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The tool takes the three parameters discussed above (datum, rate of change, projection) and produces the plots or tables that describe how sea level will change in the future, such as those included as Figure 3 and Table 1.
Here is their Figure 3, in all its glory:
Now, this is good, because it starts in 1992. This means we are already almost a quarter century into this graph, so we can see how well the various projections are doing in 2016. Now, the “NOAA Low” estimate (bottom line, dotted blue) is simply an extension of the historical rate.
To look at the others, I took their Table 1 showing their projections, hand-typed it into Excel (because it’s a graphic and not text and numbers, bad scientists, no cookies), and used the Excel Solver tool to determine the equations of those lines. This lets me calculate the annual sea level rise for each of the four scenarios. Remember, the lowest one called “NOAA Low” is the observed rate extended out to 2100. In the figure below we can see the observed rate of sea level rise (2.6 mm/year) compared to the three NOAA projections for the year 2016.
How are they doing? Let’s start from the “NOAA High” projection. NOAA was definitely high for this one. It’s more than four times the current rate. I’d throw that model in the trash. After a quarter century it’s rising at more than four times the observed rate. Sorry, not valid.
Same thing for the “NOAA Int High”. After a quarter century that sucker is almost three times actual observations. Into the trash with that one as well.
Finally, the NOAA Int Low … well, it is about fifty percent higher than observed. I suppose that is in a feasible range … or so it would seem until we look at where the rates of sea level rise are projected to be by the year 2100.
The fastest sea level rise in the paleo record is from about 16000 to 8000 years before present, at the end of the last ice age glacial period. The rapid rise was from the melting of the ice that was a mile thick where Chicago sits today. As that incredible mass of ice in the temperate zones melted, sea level rose about 110 metres. That is a sustained rate of rise of about 14 mm/year. That rate has not been seen for the last 8000 years, and for a good reason—there is no mile of ice over Chicago to melt. Despite that, NOAA predicts that we may well see twice that rate of rise by the end of the century?? Like I said … that doesn’t pass the laugh test. Even their lowest estimate (NOAA Int Low) is more than half the historical record post-glacial rate … not believable.
Finally, look at the St. Petersburg sea level dataset, or any Florida sea level dataset. None of them show any significant acceleration, despite covering the period of recent warming. Warming but no acceleration of sea level rise … oops.
These alarmist claims of accelerating sea level rise have been being made since about 1988, when Jim Hansen conned the US Senate into buying into his hysteria. Despite the claims, there is no sign of said acceleration in the Florida sea level data.
Now, could it happen? Could sea level rise start to accelerate?
Sure, it’s possible … but until you see it, it is just a James Hansen fantasy.
These NOAA claims of wildly accelerating rates of sea level rise are not science in any form. They are government sponsored hysteria, and whoever did this at NOAA should resign.
Unfortunately, the costs of this rampant alarmism will be huge, as coastal communities will struggle to comply with a meaninglessly exaggerated risk.
The only good news is that sea level pays no attention to what NOAA and the rest of the activist-ridden government and non-government organizations say … and sooner or later, this will become too evident for even the most ardent climate activist to ignore.
My best wishes to everyone,
w.
PS—If you are commenting please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE REFERRING TO, so that everyone can understand your subject.
UPDATE: As usual, commenters provide pure gold.
Larry Hamlin January 15, 2017 at 11:18 am says:
The Tampa Bay study is question relies upon a “tool” developed by the USACE as noted in the quote in the subject article provided below.
“Future SLR estimates can be calculated for the Tampa Bay region, integrating data from the local St. Petersburg tide gauge, using a flexible, well-supported tool developed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The tool takes the three parameters discussed above (datum, rate of change, projection) and produces the plots or tables that describe how sea level will change in the future, such as those included as Figure 3 and Table 1.”
The USACE model methodology can be found at: http://www.corpsclimate.us/ccaceslcurves.cfm.
This USACE tool is in fact a semi-emprical methodology model of the type whose significant shortcomings was addressed in the UN IPCC AR5 report which specifically noted:
“Many semi-empirical model projections of global mean sea level rise are higher than process-based model projections (up to about twice as large), but there is no consensus in the scientific community about their reliability and there is thus low confidence in their projections. {13.5}”
“Despite the successful calibration and evaluation of semi-empirical models against the observed 20th century sea level record, there is no consensus in the scientific community about their reliability, and consequently low confidence in projections based on them. {13.5.2, 13.5.3, Figure 13.12}”
“Because of the limited or medium evidence supporting SEMs, and the low agreement about their reliability, we have low confidence in their projections.” (Section 13.5.3)
Thus the Tampa Bay study addressed in this post relies upon highly speculative methodology which was specifically cautioned against in the UN IPCC AR5 report as providing results which the IPCC have “low confidence in their projections.”
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This whole “sea level rise alarmism” is already costing too much worldwide. Se level rise has been quite stable and it’s rather predictable. Probably it will continue to rise with the same average value determined from the satellite data measurements. However, countries, such as mine, are already spending millions of dollars each year in the so called “adaptation measures” that, after some time, prove to be more problematic and have a bigger impact than the natural sea level rise itself.
“… spending millions of dollars each year in the so called “adaptation measures …”
In some places local authorities have entertained the compulsory acquisition of waterfront property that, they say, will be affected by ‘sea level rise’. In such situations I would be having a good, hard look at who owns land that will become waterfront, and thus increase in value, once the properties between their land and the sea are compulsorily acquired. I would then be having a good, hard look at the people involved and their relationships with each other.
So young, and so cynical! Surely there couldn’t be any dirty work at the crossroads…could there?
Ha. Follow the money to get to the truth.
“In some places local authorities have entertained the compulsory acquisition of waterfront property…”
The basket of deplorables who own much of that, won’t go away quietly. So the elites want to acquire it at fire sale prices and are willing to use the police powers of an all-powerful govt to get it for them.
“In some places….”
Where, for instance?
Regarding mitigation measures – i.e., continuing to live with sea level increases as mankind has done for all of its recorded history – it’s really quite simple and inexpensive.
At a sea level increase of about 10 inches a century, assume that we have to replace all of our coastal infrastructure (roads, power plants, ground floor residences, etc.) every time sea level rises one foot. That would be a ridiculously conservative assumption, tremendously overblown, and will never happen in such a ridiculous fashion … but just go with it. That means we’d have to rebuild our coastal infrastructure at least once every 120 years.
Well, considering that virtually all of our existing infrastructure today is less than 50 years old, and that virtually all of it (roads, power plants, ground floor residences, etc.) have design lifetimes of considerably less than 50 years, that means we’ll rebuild our entire coastal infrastructure at least twice before we need to do so due to sea level rise. And every time we rebuild that infrastructure, we’ll presumably build it with sea level rise in mind (unlike 50 years ago) and accordingly harden it against sea level rise.
The actual cost to raise any form of infrastructure 1 foot over what it otherwise might be situated would be unmeasurable within the overall cost to rebuild such infrastrucure … it would be in the immeasurable noise level.
Therefore, there will be virtually no net cost to mitigate the costs of sea level rise at current or near current rates in our coastal areas. Non-coastal areas, even mere yards or meters to perhaps a mile or kilometer or two will never see any impact at all.
So who really CARES if sea level rises 10 inches a century? Except, of course for the constant scaremongers.
Flying from Europe to the South Pacific 4-6 time a year, with a window seat I sometimes wonder HOW a 1.74mm measurement is taken,. During the flight (20+ Hours) about 99% of the time its over water which in most places is more than 5km deep, the tide in New Zealand does not respect the tide in Alaska, (rise and fall different all over the world, wind, storms, moon, all might have an effect ( Scottish oil platforms reporting 20meter plus waves, perhaps at the moment of calculation ) Help! someone knows the secret, please enlighten, To me it is like taking one grain of rice out of billion million tons.
Lots of averaging!
Most of the sea level rise is in the assumptions of things like isostasy and ‘glacial rebound’ not to mention the satellite metric assumptions. Sea level rise and inundation have been a scare tactic for centuries – think of Noah’s flood or Atlantis. Perhaps some kind of race memory dating back to the release of the water from Lake Agassiz and the flooding of Doggerland and the inundation of the Mediterranean and Black Sea ‘valleys’
When you are an alarmist ‘end is nigh’ soothsayer you can’t help yourself from adjusting your figures to accommodate your religious belief.
There is also the effect of air pressure.
http://www.smhi.se/en/theme/air-pressure-and-sea-level-1.12266
” Higher air pressure gives lower sea levels: an increase in air pressure of 1 hPa lowers the water level by 1 cm.
Sea level varies from day to day and week to week, depending on the weather situation. Air pressure has a direct influence on the sea level.
High air pressure exerts a force on the surroundings and results in water movement. So high air pressure over a sea area corresponds to low sea level and conversely low air pressure (a depression) results in higher sea levels. This is called the inverse barometer effect.
The average sea level during a year is 0 cmPGA and the average air pressure is 1013 hPa. Since the air pressure normally varies between 950 and 1050 hPa during a year, the expected variation in sea level due to air pressure is between +63 cm and -37 cm around mean sea level.
Water levels at a particular location are not only affected by the local air pressure but also by other factors, so this simple correlation is rarely observed.
Sea levels in north-western Europe are often high during autumn and winter when there are frequent depressions and strong westerly winds, but low during the spring and summer when high pressure and gentle winds dominate.
The sea surface on the Baltic can slope significantly both from north to south and from west to east. Deep low pressure passages over the Bothnian Bay, combined with high pressure over the southern Baltic can create sea level differences of up to 2 m.”
There is a secret hidden under a pile of BS. We can’t know where we are going because we don’t know where we have been.
If we had 10,000 years worth of totally accurate earth temperature, which we don’t, and divided it by 1 billion years of history, knowing the earth is much older than that, it comes out to 001 %. So all predictions concerning or predicting temperatures are based on a tiny tiny portion of history, a blink of an eye and useless. The climate will continue to change and we have to adapt to it for survival. Hopefully it will happen slowly enough to give us a chance.
“There is also the effect of air pressure.”
Aha! That explains why Florida isn’t under water. The weight of atmospheric carbon is keeping the sea level down.
To some extend its like a big bathtub IMO, yes the water sloshes around but it can be determined and should be more or less the same all over the bath…
These folks think they are the opposite of King Canute and command the sea to rise…..
Part of the sea level rise that causes storm surge in a hurricane or tropical storm is due to the lower barometric pressure in the center of the storm.
Global Tide gauge records on geo stationary land show about 2mm per year. IMV, this is the most accurate estimate, stillcaffected by 18 year lunar cycles.
There is no measurement of sea level to mm accuracy. It is based on gross measurement to about a half foot, then two values over time are taken, and the difference is computed to significant digits unrelated to the measurement.
I know the US Navy takes rather precise measurements of things like Ocean Height and Gravity Potential maps to allow SLBMs to hit what they are shooting at, thousands of Nautical miles away, but they have a reputation of being stingy with nuclear secrets. I rather suspect if any US Government agency could really make ocean sea-level measurements that accurately, they’d never be allowed to publish them.
I expect sea levels to deaclerate with sun cycles 24-27.
Why? What does sea level rise and fall have to do with these yet to be predicted cycles?
I fear we will be paying the “social cost of stupidity” for some time.
I really don’t trust any of the sea level rise rates…
Unless the rock I live on is rising….
Even the United Nations does not believe in significant sea level rise.
See my blog at http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com https://thedemiseofchristchurch.com/2016/05/06/un-headquarters-and-usd1-2-billion-upgrade-and-rising
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Since the world average of sea level rise is 1.74mm per year, or less. The east coast US sea level rise is around 2.3mm per year, that would mean the US east coast is sinking adding to the rise. Florida in parts likely also sinking faster with their higher rates.
The best current estimate from Nils Axel Moerner is ~2.2m/yr. this comes from ~40 PSMSL tide gauges with a differential GPS vertical land motion correction within 10 km. The problem with all the ‘arbitrary’ TG subset selections ( like the ~1.7mm/yr you cite from Church and White 2011 is still suspect because an arbitrary selection of geostationary by opinion gauges. There are also decadal regional variations, so some selection bias is inherent.
Mm, not m. Duho!
The 1.74mm comes from a number of studies over the last 20 years. Starting with Holgate. Recent studies seem to show a slowdown below that value as I noted below.
That 1.74 mm/yr figure (variously estimated at 1.7 to 1.8 mm/yr) includes the addition of 0.3 mm/yr estimated GIA, for the rate at which Prof. Richard Peltier estimates that sea-level would be falling, due to continued sinking and broadening of the ocean basins, because of loading from meltwater added to the oceans from the great northern ice sheets circa 10K years ago. In other words, 1.74 mm/yr is not the global globally averaged rate of sea-level rise, it is an estimate of what the rate would be were it not for the presumed sinking and broadening of the ocean basins. The actual global average rate of sea-level rise, from measurements, is at most about 1.5 mm/year.
I agree ristvan. It appears Church and White selectively picked guages to arrive at a higher rate. I mean they used a large number of sites which normally would have been sufficient to approximate the average. But their numbers diverge from the average or a random sample so they must have done some selection. Even the climate science guys who purport to be objective, are not in fact whenever you dig into methods and numbers.
Just noting that I ran the numbers on the GPS stations around the world and, sure enough, the coastal GPS stations are rising by about 0.3 mms/year on average.
So I consider the glacial isostacy number of 0.3 mms/year to be the right number. Everything connected to climate science needs to be double-checked and verified through other methods but once in awhile they turn out correct.
Bill, a couple of years ago, during the NC sea-level kerfuffle, I looked briefly at CORS data for vertical land motion in the vicinity of NC’s tide gauges. Frankly, the data looked like garbage. The numbers were all over the place.
Maybe it’s better now, but the bottom line is that I don’t trust claimed sub-millimeter precision for attempts to determine vertical land motion from GPS data. Maybe if the GRASP mission ever flies it will improve matters.
Note that even Hansen & Sato are now using 1.4 mm/yr as the pre-satellite, post-1930, 20th century global average rate of SLR, from tide gauges:
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/SeaLevel/SL.1900-2016.png
Inexcusably, they cut off the tide-gauge graph in 1993, and splice a satellite altimetry graph onto the end, in place of the rest of the tide-gauge graph. That’s the old “IPCC sea-level nature trick,” which obscures the fact that the two very different sorts of measurements produce very different numbers, and which gives the misleading impression that the rate of sea-level rise suddenly accelerated in 1993, when the satellites started measuring it.
daveburton,
Sonel.org is the main organization tracking the GPS stations.
You can go here and maybe look around a little at the other material on the site.
http://www.sonel.org/-GPS-.html
I have a recollection that North America continent is actually rising as a result of the loss of the massive weight of the glaciers. Don’t know if this extends as far South as Florida.
The ice sheets depressed the crust into the mantle. Along the edge of the ice sheets, the displaced mantle pushed the crust upward. While the area under the sheets is still rebounding, many of the surrounding areas are still subsiding.
Canada rising while lower u.s. states sinking. The continent is a teeter-totter along the north-south axis with a huge load of ice on one end which is now gone. ‘Swinging’ back to ‘level’/baseline.
Florida, the Carolinas, up to Jersey are all sinking. I haven’t checked north of that. The Mississippi delta is sinking fairly rapidly due to sediment loading. The GPS station at the Grand Isle, LA Coast Guard Station is sinking at about 6.5 mm/year for the duration of the record (slightly over a decade). By comparison Atlantic City is about 1.6 mm per year land subsidence.
The GPS records are not long for most tide gauges, where they exist at all.
“Don’t know if this extends as far South as Florida”
It does not. To the contrary the eastern US is sinking as the “forebulge” squeezed up by the Laurentide ice is slowly flowing back to the rising area centered on Hudson Bay. The “Zero Line” is in Nova Scotia.
You are absolutely correct. These fraudsters never distinguish between sea level rise and isostatic adjustment (which includes isostatic rebound from glacial melting and subsidence from delta sediment loading). Actual sea level rise (from melting continental glaciers & pumping aquifers) is 1.6 mm to 1.9 mm per year. Places experiencing more (or less) than this are responding to isostatic or tectonic forces, not rising sea levels.
Louis:
You are “absolutely” incorrect.
But what’s new here.
“On a global basis, glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) is one of the most modelled of the geophysical signal present in tide gauge data. The plot to the right shows Prof. Richard Peltier’s prediction for tide gauge rates from the one degree resolution, ICE-5G (VM2) solutions given below. This map shows a number of features of GIA predictions for relative sea level (RSL; the sea level as measured by tide gauges) rates, and the colour bar was chosen to highlight far field features. ”
http://www.psmsl.org/train_and_info/geo_signals/gia/
You just have to love the way models are used to trump observations and activist predictions based on models get published without corresponding actual observed sea level rising rates.
A false scientific method that factually abuses scientific method concept.
Again, predictions have yet to be verified while direct observations have not been disproved.
And this 1.74mm comes from rocky dust and silt deposits to the ocean. World ocean has 362 millions km2. That means we need 362 km3 of silt to raise world ocean 1mm.
According http://www.ecology.info/amazon-barrier.htm
Amazon only is bringing 1.3 billion metric tons of silt to ocean yearly. This is around 650 km3 of stuff. This alone corresponds to 2mm world ocean rise per year.
Amazon silt deposits are largely, if not entirely a local phenomena.
Amazon silt builds delta land and tidal estuaries. As New Orleans and the Mississippi River demonstrate so well, when the river is curtailed by dikes, the existing estuaries and delta land are destroyed by the lack of fresh silt.
As long as the Amazon is moving quickly, silt stays suspended. When the Amazon river flows into it’s delta bay, the water is greatly slowed and siltation occurs. Estuaries include convoluted tidal creeks and bays that further work to trap silt.
Instead of raising sea level, the silt builds delta land keeping it relevant to sea level.
Blue water, ocean water so clear that depth visibility is amazing, still circles the Amazon’s outflow. Again, a wall of water that slows and impedes Amazon river water causing remaining silt to fall out of the water column.
Opposed by evaporation, oceans and land remain in relative equilibrium. As so many dried salt lakes worldwide and even the Mediterranean demonstrate; without significant fresh water inflow, waters increase in salinity eventually drying up.
Hmmm…not so sure of the maths here.
If the sediment sinks, it must be more dense than water.
But let us assume that it is equal for the moment, to simplify the calculation.
One cubic meter of water weighs about one metric ton, depending on the temperature.
Given the initial assumption, it is close enough though.
So one cubic kilometer of water weighs one billion metric tons (1000 cubed)
So one cubic kilometer of sediment must weigh over one billion tons.
So the silt from the Amazon must be less than 1.3 cubic kilometers.
Where does the 650 cubic KM come from?
I see from the linked table that the density of silt is nearly 3, meaning 3 times the density of water.
So, it seems that 1.3 billion metric tons of silt is less than 0.5 cubic km.
Correct me if I am wrong, slept late and only one cup of coffee.
But it seems intuitively obvious that silt from one river is not raising sea level by 2 mm per year, even if none of was deposited above sea level as noted by ATheoK.
Oops…linked table:
http://agriinfo.in/?page=topic&superid=4&topicid=271
Another way to look at it is by relative surface area. The Amazon basin surface area is given as 6.92 million sq km, and the ocean surface as 360 million sq km, or about 1/50th as big.
So the entire Amazon basin would need to be eroding at an average of 100 mm per year for this to be true.
In a hundred years, that would be 10 meters!
Peter January 15, 2017 at 6:11 am
“And this 1.74mm comes from rocky dust and silt deposits to the ocean. World ocean has 362 millions km2. That means we need 362 km3 of silt to raise world ocean 1mm.
According http://www.ecology.info/amazon-barrier.htm
Amazon only is bringing 1.3 billion metric tons of silt to ocean yearly. This is around 650 km3 of stuff. This alone corresponds to 2mm world ocean rise per year.”
Thanks. Even if, as noted questionable, but accepted for now, the silt has a density (similar to, but marginally higher than salt water; thus, say, 1040 Kg/m3 [ounces per cubic foot] – ref Menicholas, below
“If the sediment sinks, it must be more dense than water. But let us assume that it is equal for the moment, to simplify the calculation.”) about like water, your 362 km3 of silt, raising the oceans 1 mm/year must lighten the load on continents, too.
This gets difficult.
I don’t know how much meteor and meteorite dust is added to the oceans each year, for example.
I doubt if it is a cubic kilometre each year. [Argument of personal disbelief! I know!].
Auto
Build on a swamp, die by the swamp.
Here is a recent paper on the subject.
http://www.klimarealistene.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1-s2.0-S0964569116300205-main.pdf
Why does NOAA not show “observed”, “actual”, or “historical” on Figure 3? Is it because the vast majority of readers would immediately see that the NOAA projections are BS?
+1
Three guesses, Fred!
The essay suggests the NOAA originator of the projections in the referenced article should resign. He/she/they obviously have no personal or professional integrity and will not resign. They should be fired for cause immediately for incompetency and scare mongering.
One of the arguments advanced so often on the Left is that freedom of speech does not extend to the freedom to cry “Fire!” is a crowded theatre.
Do unfounded images of the entire planet being engulfed in a conflagration not qualify?
Here’s St. Pete, with the latest data:
http://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=8726520
It experiences some subsidence (not climate-related, Peltier estimates about 0.5 mm/yr, which probably on the low side). It is also one of the small minority of gauges which shows a slight acceleration, much of it due to a spike in the 1940s (at the beginning of the record).
Here’s Key West’s much longer record, where you can also see the 1940s spike in the context of the longer, much more linear trend:
http://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=8724580
Its 113 year record has seen no statistically significant acceleration.
Much of the St. Pete acceleration disappears if you look at just the last 60 years:
http://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=8726520&c_date=1956/12:2019/12
The linear fit at St Pete is now +2.97 mm/year ±0.30 mm/year.
Here it is projected to 2100:
http://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=8726520&g_date=1900/1:2099/12&c_date=1956/12:2019/12
Projected level at 1/2100 is 0.243 meters above current level (9.6 inches).
Experience has shown that such apparent accelerations are transient, due to the ocean sloshing, and linear projections are much more predictive than quadratic. Nevertheless, here’s a quadratic projection:
http://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=8726520&g_date=1900/1:2099/12&c_date=1956/12:2019/12&linear=0&lin_ci=0&quadratic=1&quad_ci=1
Projected level at 1/2100 is 0.563 meters above current level (22.2 inches). Realistically, that should be considered an extreme high-end projection, but it’s approximately equal to NOAA’s “Int Low” projection.
NOAA Int High and NOAA High are just plain delusional.
Clarification: “The linear fit at St Pete is now +2.97 mm/year ±0.30 mm/year” refers to a fit to just the last 60 years of measurement data, which is about a 0.25 mm/yr higher rate than if you include the first few years with the late-1940s bump.
If you view the longer history at the Key West gauge, you can see why I think including the late 1940s bump distorts the long term trend a bit.
Correction #2: Key West’s record is 103 years, not 113.
Ok… I’m gonna point out quite a few things.
#1 We’ve got mangrove swamps around and quite a lot of brackish to mild brackish areas – an increase of even 4 inches would drive the salt quite a bit further inland.
#2 We’ve got salt-water intrusion into the aquifer around Tampa, with the rise in sea level we’ll also have a higher infiltration of aquifer with salt water.
#3 Most of the area East and South of Tampa Bay is flood plain and flood spill – which means that this will have drastic results on drainage systems that were mostly laid out more than thirty years ago.
So while the article is a bit scaremongery, its also going to be a problem.
http://www.livescience.com/40476-florida-saltwater-rise-everglades.html
People also love to live along active tectonic zones, but we never hear from the eco-nutcases about moving all those cities.
I can’t tell much about the other two, but salt water intrusion in an aquifer typically has nothing to do with sea level rise. It has everything to do with subsidence and overdrawing of groundwater.
Now, you may be a special case, but generally, this happens when water wells draw too much water and the water level in the aquifer drops low enough that the water pressure from the sea can push through the ground. It’s also associated with land subsidence, where the land itself sinks. The solution is tight control of water wells.
As the phrase “Tampa Subsidence District” doesn’t come up anything in a search, I’m going to guess you don’t have one. That search does bring up many discussions about sinkholes, I’m going to guess that you have a major subsidence problem.
In short, there is a well known and easy solution to your problem. Stop up the dang water wells and use surfacewater. It’s a painful bullet to bite, but Houston is far better for doing it years ago.
Miami sucks about 360 million gallons of freshwater per day from wells and then dumps its wastewater into the ocean.
You are correct Ben.
In Florida especially.
There is a lot of rain here, and the hydrostatic pressure of the water table keeps out salt if there is no pumping of the groundwater near the coast.
The salt has already long since contaminated the groundwater in Pinellas county.
When I was living in that area in the 1980s, my family bought some land in central Pasco county, which is just north of Pinellas. Our property was just west of the location of what where then some huge new well fields that were put in to supply Pinellas.
Those wells sucked Pasco dry, and some of our neighbors that had lakes in 1982 had, by 1988, docks sitting twenty feet above dry ground that never held water again.
Pinellas is a thirsty place, and the population, which was growing fast in those days, has absolutely exploded in the years since.
BTW, there is no surface water in Pinellas to speak of, except for retention ponds, so that is not an option.
But the area East of Pasco county, known as the Green Swamp, is the source region for all of the rivers and creeks in Central Florida.
They put in those well fields because there was already no more water in Pinellas, and that was 35 years ago.
Actually, to correct a statement I made above…population growth seems to have levelled off in Pinellas in recent years, unlike the rest of the Florida peninsula…I suspect it is because it is completely built out.
Agreed Ben:
What is a concern in many rural areas are large developments that put in their own wells to avoid paying for water.
Golf courses,
Malls,
Commercial shopping developments.
When any of the above are constructed in rural areas, people with generations old wells suddenly find their water in short supply.
Reading some of their “contracts” with the local governments often include clauses where the commercial entity is given the rights to drawing XX acre feet of water annually.
A local group once pointed out to a county board of supervisors, that the board guaranteeing commercial developments technically allows them to suck a local river dry.
There was a lot of stammering, throat clearing and coughing by the supervisors when that point came up. The elected supervisors really hate it when simple math or science illustrates their lack of common sense.
It’s very similar to night light pollution.
Supervisors are focused on promised taxes, while phrases like fashionable signs, reasonable parking lot lights, tasteful architecture floodlights all sound so reasonable.
Then the complex gets built and the beautiful night sky is flooded by excess lighting.
Commercial well kept landscapes and ground covers means the water table will drop.
prjindigo January 14, 2017 at 5:25 pm Edit
We’ve seen on the order of ten inches over the last century … where are the corpses? Where are the tragedies? Yes, there are effects. But they are not what the headline said.
Yes, that is true. But that is true without any acceleration in sea level rise.
1. A prediction that by the end of the century the rate of sea level rise will be twice as high as it has been in 100,000 years is not “a bit scaremongery”. It is a pure exercise in alarmism, is not science at all, and is reprehensible.
2. A four inch (100 mm) rise will be a problem for a few people a few times per year. But not a “severe” problem.
There’s a good discussion of these issues here.
Finally, you post an article about a study of the everglades. Following the article to the study reveals that the authors said (emphasis mine):
And that is ALL THAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE CLIMATE!! The word climate appears once in the study. In other words, nothing … don’t settle for the press release, it’s generally a puff piece full of misrepresentations. Read the study itself.
In any case, that is exactly what I expected to find. Saltwater intrusion into the Everglades has been going on since we foolishly decided to drain them decades ago. Little to do with sea level rise.
w.
And how many hurricanes will hit this area between now and the year 2100?
Will the destroyed homes be rebuilt?
If the example of New Orleans is any guide, the answer is yes. It will be rebuilt, and residents and politicians will all insist that the rebuilding be a national priority.
New Orleans was rebuilt even though the area is the most hurricane prone stretch of coastline in the world, is already below sea level, and sinking more every single day!
The real solution, should this ever really become a problem that needs solving, is to not rebuild in places that are inundated during storms, because it is only a matter of time before it happens again.
Or we could focus on mitigation. The Dutch have kept the North Sea out of their country for hundreds of years, and for most of that time did so with hand tools and wind powered pumps.
Indeed.
The adage I always adhere to is: ‘never buy a house of Watermeadow Close…..’
R
Ralf,
#Exactly.
Similarly; Brookside Walk; Raby Mere; River View [unless distant and obviously downhill]; and even Winter Bourne [which is dry in summer].
Auto
The salt water intrusion has little to do with sea level rise; pumping more water from the local aquifer than is being replaced by rainfall the the main problem. Wells located over a larger area, and further from the ocean will resove this problem. Look at the historical rate of pumping to see the problem.
And people live in tornado prone areas, ice storm prone areas, earthquake prone areas, drought prone areas …… so what’s your point? People shouldn’t live anywhee?
NOTHING of what you, not one of your points has anything to do with or is caused by sea level rise, much less “human caused” sea level rise.
The continually accelerating curves show the absurdity of these projections. It would not be long before the NOAA High was running vertical. Noah’s flood Mark II.
To reach the 2 meters by 2100 the rate of acceleration would have to be 4% per year. That means by the year 2099 sea level would have to rise more in that year than in the entire time of the 20th century.
Whew! I live just south of Tampa Bay and am about 2 miles from Sarasota Bay – was worried that the article’s reported sea level rise might make it only 1.99 miles to the Bay.
I almost put my condo up for sale!
Thanks Willis. If you are ever n this area I’ll buy you a beer.
Done deal. Might be a while, tho …
w.
No problem. We have some reasonably good craft brewers here, so the beer is always fresh.
I would.
Ten years from now it will be unsaleable and uninsureable.
Griffed yourself again there didn’t you?
How are those polar bears?
A *lot* of nonsense numbers make it into publication. I mean, this is a real problem in our information-driven world. The false overwhelms the facts (and even the educated guesses).
Willis any chance of overlaying Mean Sea Level Trend Florida with Relative Sea Level Change Projections charts for an eyeball comparison?
PS:Love your work btw!
You all might enjoy this: https://pjmedia.com/blog/nasa-nonsense/
It is exactly this sort of dissection of alarmists “scientific” claims. That Trump should have at hand when he rounds on them to cut the “green blobs” funding. Simply turning off the funding tap and delivering purile put downs will not suffice. He has to do it with hard evidence that will be in most cases, already made available by the alarmists! As it us here.
Their retaliatory arguments, in this case, would be embarrassing to say the least. It is the rentseekers own historical data tbat “convicts” them.
Quite a few global warming claims actually come down to an inconvenient look at the tide gage record. Unusually large amounts of warming…well that would cause unusual levels of sea level rise, so nope. All that greatly accelerated ice loss…nope, water doesn’t appear to exist. “Missing” heat going into the ocean…nope, we’d notice that as sea level rise. You can probably think of some others.
It gets worse. PSMSL.org shows sea level rise from tide gauges and, for the Tampa area, land subsidence by GPS. The GPS system in use from 2001 to 2007 shows the land near Tampa is sinking at a rate of about .3 mm/yr. That GPS station was shut down in 2007 and replaced with a new (?) system. It shows land subsidence from 2007 to 2014 (the latest data shown in PSMSL) at a rate of 1.55 mm/yr. Thus the tide gauge at 2.6 mm/yr is really only 1 mm/yr of actual sea level rise.
Thank you for summarizing the shrill words, chaff with maybe a few grains of useful wheat. The various agencies need to be taken at their word for what sea level rise any of them might have used for actual construction. That would be the real test. And fortunately about ten years ago, various federal and state agencies partnered in construction of a levee to keep Pacific Ocean at bay. The design sea level rise was (National Council Marine Board, 1987):
5 years from 1987 = 1992 0 ft
25 ” = 2012 0.2 ft
50 ” = 2037 0.5 ft
100 ” = 2087 0.9 ft
If one does a nonlinear extrapolation to the 2100 endpoint used by most of the climate camp followers, one gets about 1.3 ft. Interestingly, one finds that the extrapolation curve is concave downward, i.e., sea level rise is decelerating.
If you bring this up to any of the camp followers, you will get various responses like sea level rise will be lumpy, or any difference between what you see with your lying eyes and what the computer models show can be attributed to “latent sea level rise”. I think latent sea level rise lurks down there in the abyss with Missing Heat, Missing Cold, Bathybius haecklii, and Polywater.
This problem with local councils, or similar is not new. We had the same problem a few years back on the South Coast of NSW, where the recorded sea level rise is about 1 mm/year. The local council believed the NOAA predictions were likely to come to pass, but they settled for an intermediate figure. Parts of the east coast of the US may be sinking as northern parts show glacial rebound which makes 2.5 mm/yr realistic. However, some safety margin is required for storm surges particularly at high tides.
So what about this recent SL study that found that the world’s coastal areas had increased over the last 30 years? So how is that possible if we have experienced their so called CAGW over this same period of time? So where is their SLR? Something just doesn’t add up.
Willis or anyone else care to provide an answer? https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/08/30/earths-surface-gaining-coastal-land-area-despite-sea-level-rise/
It measures areas that are ‘wet’ or ‘dry’. So it sees paddy fields, new water reservoirs, and other irrigated areas as ‘sea’, and when those areas dry up, it sees them as ‘land’. Simple really.
Erosion moves a lot of material . . ?
The real good news is that, according to Roy Spencer, here is a good chance of John Christy being appointed to head of NOAA… In his Facebook page he wrote:
“It now looks like my co-conspirator (and boss) John Christy is being floated to head NOAA. I can’t see any other reason for his name to be mentioned in this new article by James Delingpole (James will probably neither confirm nor deny his intention– wink wink nudge nudge). John has said it’s the only position he’d consider taking, and I recommended him for it to two Trump transition team members. The downside is we really need him here in Huntsville…but he’d do a great job as NOAA Administrator.”
It seems John Delingpole has the hint:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/stop-worrying-about-trump-hes-going-to-beat-the-green-blob-and-be-great/
Great post Willis, follow your link
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/study-sea-level-rise-may-severely-impact-tampa-by-2040/379718201
back to the original article and open the comment section to find my post late last year that says:
*****************
The advisory board concluded that the region could experience sea level rise between a half-foot to 2.5 feet of sea level rise by 2050.
2.5 feet by 2050 comes to 23 mm/yr. The overall rate of sea level rise at the St. Petersburg tide gauge
http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/520.php
since 1947 is 2.7 mm/yr. The obvious question to ask is when will the bump-up to as much as 8 times the current rate going to begin to happen?
Steve Case – Milwaukee, WI
*****************
I do a daily news search on “Sea Level” and if there are any comment sections on articles found by the search I will usually have my say. What I find is typically an exaggerated extrapolation of sea level rise out to some time in the future, usually 2100 sometimes sooner with rates of sea level rise that clearly are not possible. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and I’m finding that comment sections are disappearing and being replaced by Twitter and other social media links.
Sea level rise is probably the biggest scare the Warmunists have. I hope that the over the top exaggerations appearing in the popular press are brought to President Trump’s attention.
The 2014 Leclercq et al world glacier study also found that there had been a SLOWING OF RETREAT since 1950. So where is the fabled impact of increased co2 emissions over the last 60+ years?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/new-paper-finds-worldwide-glacier.html
Willis …. some additional area sea level info for Tampa/St Pete guages:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/residual1980.htm?stnid=8726724
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/residual1980.htm?stnid=8726520
And here is the Key West MSL “variation” graph over 50 years (from 1940) – which illustrates I believe the “rate” of sea level change over time – and that sea level during this 50 year period BOTH increased AND decreased …
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/50yr.htm?stnid=8724580
And the more recent MSL trends:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_update.htm?stnid=8724580
Willis, have you noticed the irony that we get our flood forecasts from NOAA?
Did NOAA ever check with the Dutch? No .. But I remember seeing a map predicting a flooding of Death Valley and Salton Sea.
http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/the-effects-of-climate-change-in-the-netherlands-2012