Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The California Coastal Commission has established that the state must plan as a minimum for 3.5 feet of coastal sea level rise over the next 30 years.
This ludicrous rate of coastal sea level rise is 26 times greater than the rate of coastal sea level rise that has been measured by NOAA tide gauge data over the past 30 years at numerous coastal locations including 7 locations with between 75 to 115 years of continuous NOAA tide gauge coastal sea level rise data which shows these locations will average only 1.6 inches of coastal sea level rise in the next 30 years – not 3.5 feet!!
Additionally, the long time period NOAA coastal tide gauge data measurements establish that no acceleration (rates of coastal sea level rise are not increasing) of coastal sea level rise has occurred over the past 30 years (and longer) despite ridiculous, flawed and erroneous claims otherwise by climate alarmist models that have been proven to be completely wrong based upon actual data measurements.
These idiotic schemes by the Commission to mandate a 3.5 foot minimum (or even worse as the report suggests below) future coastal sea level rise over the next 30 years threatens to impose massive bureaucracy and waste trillions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures and endanger the state’s economic viability.
NOAA coastal sea level rise tide gauge data for California as illustrated below with data from San Diego and San Francisco shows coastal sea level rising consistently (no increasing rates of sea level rise over time) at only about 2 mm/year at these locations not 35.5 mm/year as mandated by the Coastal Commission bureaucracy.
The California Coastal Commission is simply out of control and performing in a completely incompetent manner based upon its reliance on scientifically unsupported and purely speculative coastal sea level rise climate model alarmist propaganda while completely ignoring and concealing measured, consistent and hugely lower rates of coastal sea level rise representing more than 100 years of California’s history.
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It is erosion, stupid!
Nothing to do with climate.
I know nothing of this area but it looks vulnerable, with very low lying houses adjacent to the sea, a road also at a low level behind them, what looks like sandstone cliffs directly behind the road, which presumably means the beach front houses are built on the remains of those cliffs. so probably pretty foolish to have developed the area in the first place.
Rock ‘armour’ would protect the road and the houses on top of the cliffs for many years but that still leaves the lower houses vulnerable, even assuming the area is not prone to subsidence.
But, but, but… Obama just spent $15 MILLION on a oceanfront property on Martha’s Vineyard!
Have they declared that an “exempt” zone for sea level rise?
Perhaps I could get that for a Lake Michigan property?
Obama got the State of Hi. to do him a big favor. It does not appear that neither the Obamas, nor the State are very concerned about sea level rise.
One can only wonder that the very folks who yell the loudest about SLR are the very ones who purchase multi-million dollar property on beaches.
Oceanfront Property Tied to Obama Granted Exemption From Hawaii’s Environmental Laws
https://www.propublica.org/article/oceanfront-property-tied-to-obama-granted-exemption-from-hawaiis-environmental-laws
BILL Gate’s million dollar clones
The Washington Examiner story missed Leonardo DiCaprio’s very low-lying private island he’s developing in the Caribbean. DiCaprio is “one of the most active celebrities in the climate change movement.” He “produced, hosted, and narrated the documentary Before the Flood about climate change.”
https://www.velvetropes.com/backstage/leonardo-dicaprio-house
With the Pacific Plate subducting under the North American Plate, subsidence is highly unlikely.
When you see coastal photos of nice, sandy beaches with large pillars of eroded rock several hundred feet away, shouldn’t that be A Clue?
Clues don’t work with “people without calculators” running amok. Humanity would be better served if these people went back to digging ditches and filling them in, on the same middle class salaries. They’d get some exercise too.
That assumes that the powers that be can apply critical thinking, or a modicum of commonsense!
I used to live in the Peoples Republic of California, and the simplest conclusion is that the Coastal Commission wishes to block all development anywhere near the coast, as is their practice, and has only come up with another “reason”.
Their “scientific” reasoning is quite simple and elegant. It is based on BANANA.
(Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.)
Some taxpayers should challenge this in court.
You would be appalled by the “expert” witnesses qualified by the courts. As the judges are mostly scientifically illiterate, calling on a PhD will suffice.
Consider the glyphosate cases, which really should have resulted in a RICO prosecution of the plaintiff’s lawyers.
Those lawyers were just a more clever version of Michael Avenatti trying to extort Nike for a $25 million out of court settlement on a phony claim. Avenatti’s crime was stupidity. He tried to shakedown a politically connected company with a solid track record of campaign donations to Leftist causes, even as it cranks out shoes in China with Uighur slave labor..
As long as corporations pay huge campaign “donation”
protection moneyto Leftist politicians who have weaponized the Justice System, they can expect to be protected.I would have until I went back to school for a second time for another degree, this one in healthcare as a Respiratory Therapist. Our Medical Director, a Pulmonolgist, was late for class one day. He explained he’d been on the phone with a Calif. attorney who was trying to get him to testify, for a considerable sum of money, at a trial for woman’s lawsuit that the factory she had worked at was responsible for her getting lung cancer and that the two packs of cigarettes she had smoked per day for 20 years had nothing to do with it. He had refused but he told us the attorney would find some doctor who would testify to just that.
There are a lot of dishonest “expert” witnesses out there who use their PhD’s to try to fool juries into believing lies to be able to fleece millions of dollars from companies trying to making an honest living.
I used to work for an expert witness in toxic tort cases for defendants who were sued for large emissions of air pollutants. There were many instances of opposing expert witnesses who would write extravagant claims into their reports, which could be easily rebutted by simply performing a mass balance around the process during the incident, showing that the actual amount of pollutant emitted was hundreds of times less than what the opposing expert witness claimed.
Then there were expert witnesses who claimed that people were hospitalized due to breathing air pollutants, even though the plaintiffs were upwind of the emission at the time, according to nearby weather stations.
A skilled liar with a PhD can be very dangerous in court!
Oh, Californians have been fighting in court with the Coastal Commission for years.
Del Mar CA demonstrates the idiocy of “managed retreat” from sea level
http://bit.ly/3pBcWMM
in Costa Rica the first 100 meters of shoreline are public property . its pretty nice actually
California needs to elect Larry Elder as governor. I bet Larry would actually look at the sea level data, and then set the Coastal Commission straight.
Don’t let those cheating Democrats cheat you ought of a future, Californians. Get out and vote for Elder and report any voter fraud you see to Larry Elder’s website. Voting is going on now, through the middle of September.
Save yourselves, Californians! Now’s your chance!
Yes, you don’t need to be Californian, anyone can chip in to his campaign funds at https://www.electelder.com
MSM already trying to trash him as “the black face of white supremacy” ! Sounds like he’s got them scared.
Where is the CRT of the left demanding “equity” of outcomes are more black leaders?
Oh, not THAT kind of black leader!
I don’t know about California, but Vero Beach in Florida is alarmingly existential … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me62EcJAUo4
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but the power of stupidity in Sacramento is absolute insanity…
Appears post is confusing/mixing sea and tidal water level rise (relative to center of earth) with the separate science risk of coast subsidence and erosion. It appears Coastal Zone Commission is trying to address likely future water levels coming inland due to to sea level rise and apparent substantial land subsidence (compaction, tectonics, and also erosion. As linked article describes the significant subsidence in parts of California coastal land, and I would add that the serious erosion in parts of the coast. http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba4551
Let’s demolish these pesky tide gauges!
Stan: The post specifically refers to the relative sea level rise as measured by local tide gauges. These include any of the subsidence and tectonic effects you refer to.
The fact remains that the Coastal Zone Commission is using relative sea level rise rates, including these effects, that are over 25 times greater than the very steady rates we have seen for the last century, including the periods before large increases in CO2 concentration.
Yet this rate of rise is not evident, reported or claimed on the rest of the US Pacific coast, Mexican or Canadian coasts. Let alone anywhere else in the Pacific or other oceans. Methinks some stinks.
Earth to griff! Earth to griff! Come in please! I am waiting for griff to weigh in on this cold water on CAGW nonsense, especially considering his previous request for me to mention science, which I did utilizing sea level normal cycles. griff? griff?
One demerit for calling for Griff
Two demerits if he shows up.
Three demerits if he says something dumb.
Si it’s either one, or three !
It’s three
There should be a discernible rate within five years. Compilers should be challenged to place a large five year bet in their own money.
Interesting story on water level at San Fran.
SAN FRANCISCO / TIDES OF HISTORY / Presidio gauge has measured the bay’s rise and fall for 150 years
Over the years, the gauges also showed a gradual rise in the sea level — eight inches in 150 years. However, there was also a period of 38 years, ending in 1913, when the sea level declined.
The San Francisco gauge also measured other phenomena — such as the effect of the El Niño condition on water levels. The highest tide ever recorded was on Jan. 27, 1983, when the surface of the water at the Golden Gate reached 8.78 feet above mean sea level, or zero. The lowest tide was on Dec. 17, 1933, with minus 2.9 feet. The 1983 high tide accompanied a downpour associated with the El Niño condition; the lowest accompanied a period of the exact opposite condition.
The normal tidal range is about 5.8 feet, more when the moon is full. The tide also affects the currents in the bay, which are strongest in the Golden Gate, and in the San Pablo and Carquinez straits.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-TIDES-OF-HISTORY-Presidio-gauge-2745805.php
What does Presidio tell us about sea level from a gage situated on a stable landplate?
From June 30, 1854 to Dec, 1932 the level was going down and before Dec. 17, 1933 there was NO rise. Since Jan. 27, 1983, levels have all been lower, or no rise.
Total average gain is 8 inches total, while the twice daily Range is over 5 ft – 9 inches
An El Niño, i.e. when that 1 meter higher sea level by Japan sloshed back to the west & a lot of rain runoff caused the RECORD HIGHEST and not CO2.
When the original report was in review I requested they should include periodic checkpoints comparing their predictions to the tide gauges, since they were so obviously completely off the scale. Nothing was in the report about validating the predictions.
I was looking at this last year, and seeing how their predictions compared to the tide gauges asI think it’s ten years in, from what I recall San Francisco sea-level has dropped slightly.
Then I moved out of state, and somewhat lost interest.
Every inch of the UK coast has a plan for managing both erosion and sea level rise (and has had for some years!)
nothing wrong with planning but plans should not be based on insane IPCC low probability scenarios. Especially in light of lengthy tidal records with a well defined trend. That should be the default for planning purposes.
And once again, griff swings and misses.
The article has nothing to do with whether having a plan is a good idea or not.
Very easy you change the continent to provide your BS
Having a good plan is worth having, but only, and only, if the plan is enact-able and sensible, history is always the best judge, and most of the time history simply laughs at the fatuous planning ideas. I have to listen on a regular basis over the years to all sorts of people with all sorts of claimed insider knowledge and all sorts of plans, I used to keep lists but lists and filed reports but these dont work as feedback to a belief system.
So what. Did anyone state above that there should not be an erosion, sea level rise, and more importantly in most places subsidence plans. No stated there should be no plans. The point of the article was that the plan from the commission was ridiculous and had no Science behind it. Even if you put in a 6-sigma tolerance, it would be nowhere near their numbers.
Try addressing the actual point of the article instead of hiding behind meaningless statements.
That’s the standard tactic for leftists. If you make a claim that a particular regulation goes to far, they respond with the claim that you want no regulations.
Griff
As I was responsible for helping to implement those plans for several flood defence schemes in the south west of the UK I can confirm that the UK has a very good scheme originally based on the kyoto agreement. It requires nothing remotely like the 3.5 feet in 30 years protection cited here.
Having said that, there are some vulnerable areas here that would not be protected as they would not pass a cost/benefit analysis test, and the houses in the photo accompanying this article reminds me of the soft sandstone cliffs in Norfolk.
If this was the UK I can not see that the houses in the front line in the photo would be protected ( unless this was a misleading photo).
From looking at the photo only, they should never have been built there and it is unreasonable to expect the taxpayer to bail them out
Take a guess at how much people pay to live in those houses. People vote with their wallets and feet.
The east coast of the UK is sinking due glacial rebound: the Irish sea was mostly a frozen glacier at the last glacial maximum. The NW of Britain is rising , SE is sinking.
Yes, griff the UK has a plan alright. It is to ‘Manage Realign’ and ‘No Active Intervention’ (abandon) 340 miles of previously protected coast to the sea on the basis of the IPCC’s extreme accelerated sea level rise projections. See Lord Deben’s Committee on Climate Change ‘Progress Report’ 2013, Chapter 5, page 107.
https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ASC-2013-Book-singles_2.pdf
Griff if the UK was at the front of the AGW pack you need to be planning for 6m sea level rise are you doing that?
Griff “How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it’s exposed in the bright light of day, he still clings to it — indeed, clings to it all the harder? No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie.”
~ Lamar Keene, a scam artist who posed as a psychic, describing why it was so easy to fleece people.
Wake up, Ed.
You know that you are fooled …
Griff,
The plate tectonics of the UK is totally different than the massive subduction zone that is just off the California coast.
The All-mighty Dollar.
26X? Sure, that’s within the error bands.
Ha ha! You do realise those error bands continue to get ever wider due to climate change alarmists need for alarms. I think it must be due to CO2 being an error band widening gas. What else could it be….? 🙂
Mandating preparation for 3.5 feet will have a huge impact on the shipping industry. My son in law runs a marine engineering company out of Calumet Harbor, IL, They make a very good living off the fact that the Great Lakes do vary +-3 feet over the long run. I can only imagine what that means for money spent in and around Long Beach and Port of L.A. over the next 30 years, and of course the new “woke” military establishment will jump on board and waste billions in Federal dollars to accommodate the fairy tale.
But, but, but… Kamala Harris said that the rising sea levels at California ports were already responsible for this year’s supply chain problems!
Deus ex machina. Data are an annoyance. Only models matter.
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
This is a ‘purity spiral’ – well documented in cult sociology.
It occurs when cult members gain extra status by producing ever higher levels of adherence to a belief. Thus one religious fanatic who shows his faith by fasting all day is eclipsed by another who whips himself…
In this case status is gained by predicting larger and ever-increasing levels of disaster.Look for a new leader of the California Coastal Commission replacing the current leader by claiming a six-foot increase. In ten years….
I continue to believe that the US
should return California to Mexico,
and demand our $15 million back.
The coming climate crisis is nothing more than a prediction,
that started in 1957, with oceanographer Roger Revelle,
and got louder and more hysterical for the next 64 years.
Since the climate crisis is imaginary,
why not imagine huge increases
of sea level?
There is no similarity between actual global warming
and sea level rise in the past 45 years, and the predictions
of doom for the next 45 years.
Reality has been mild harmless climate change
since the mid-1970s = not scary.
But the predictions can be scary,
like a horror movie.
Because the coming climate crisis exists in only one place:
In the over-active imaginations of leftists.!
Not even a prediction. They are selling it as a projection. An important legal distinction.
Demand our 15 million back with interest?
At this point, we would have to pay Mexico many billions to take it back, if they have any sense. I’d be quite willing to contribute to a fund for Mexico to take Calif. back and would totally support giving it to them for free with the condition they would build a Wall around the entire State and execute those who tried to go over the Wall.
(OK, the execute part may be a bit extreme. 20 yrs. in prison would do.)
“These idiotic schemes by the Commission to mandate a 3.5 foot minimum (or even worse as the report suggests below) future coastal sea level rise over the next 30 years threatens to impose massive bureaucracy and waste trillions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures and endanger the state’s economic viability.”
Not sure why you’re all worked up, Larry. We already know CA has a massive death wish for their state and economy. CA is going into a long-term death spiral. But the state can serve as an object lesson for the rest of the US and the rest of the world… just the way Green Germany, Australia, the UK and TX are doing as well. People can’t grasp the cost of catastrophic idiocy until they see the deadly consequences with their own eyes.
“People can’t grasp the cost of catastrophic idiocy until they see the deadly consequences with their own eyes.”
Problem is… they never make the connection between their liberal (emotionally base) policies and negatives caused by those policies. When they finally get sufficiently disgusted with the destruction of their current environment they migrate to a new one and begin screwing that up.
Thus, Man is surpassed only by the goat in destroying his environment!
That’s where Darwin comes in.
Leftists are taught to believe that as long as they have good intentions, everything will work out in the end.
Therefor, since they know they have good intentions, if things don’t work out, it’s because the evil capitalists have too much power and we have to make government bigger and stronger so that nirvana can descend.
I suggest they require all houses that are at 15′ or less above sea level be demolished. That would take out Malibu and a whole lot more desirable areas. Probably sure even former Vice President of the United States Al Gore will be involved. It’s coming. Give them 5 years to get it done.
…without paying for ’em. Just change a couple of building codes to make them prohibitively expensive to maintain.
Get off my lawn! We control the public lawn and all lands visible from those areas. Get off my (our) lawn!
I just did a study and found that 1,000 meters of SLR would would put 70% of the continental US underwater and would necessitate the relocation of 290 million Americans. Of course, with most arable lands under seawater, starvation would obviate the need for that relocation.
It’s science folks.
Great… beachfront property here in West Virginia.
I doubt you will have any beachfront property in WV. However you will be able to hear the ocean.
Anybody have an authoritative source for this nonsensical 10 ft. of SLR by 2100 claim? I have seen it in the popular press, as hysterical fearmongering, but I do not know where it comes from.
Anyway, I plotted it up a while back to see what it looks like. As you can see, it is not even remotely plausible. I did Boston, just because that is the tide gauge I follow. Note especially the curve for the constant acceleration case. Look at the astonishing *rate* of SLR after 80 years of constant acceleration. The other case, constant rate, caused a step change which would be visible by now. (This was back in early 2020)
Here it is:
The beauty of CliSciFi is that you just have to put the next green squiggle on the current year and superimpose the red/pink lines for all subsequent years. Saves on thought.
Photos like the one published by the OC Register could have been taken any year since photography was invented. All you have to do is wait for high tide and high surf from offshore storms to coincide.
One of the most important principles of risk management is to properly consider the likelihood of the risk. This was not done by the Commission.
not done on purpose.
Quote:”Coastal Commission Goes Berserk”
Yup. AKA: Paranoia = lack of mental agility, self-confidence and original thinking.
Find it amongst folks who are Chronically Chemically Depressed – through eating a diet of nutrient-free mush revolving around cooked starch: i.e. sugar
Eating sugar has lots of other ugly consequences but they are all ‘Lifestyle Choices’ or ‘Genetic’
That is, blame the hapless victims and if that don’t work, blame the parents. nice not.
Oh you say, how do we know about these Life Choices and Genes?
<whispers> Because a sugar-eater told you so
Just Like Climate Change
“Oh no no no. Not So Fast” you say, “Computers & Sputniks tell us about Climate Change”
Well yes they do, but, they are owned, programmed, operated and their outputs interpreted by…
Mmmmm, that’s a toughie, can I fone a frend?
Course you can, – only if it’s one that don’t eat sugar
Now, THAT is a toughie – what’s Mr Trump’s number?
As all these coastal properties will be worth nothing in 30 years I’ll offer to buy them all at say 30 dollars a property – no takers ? Nope, thought not as most sane people see this as bullsh**
The California Coastal Commission is like CARB – a great way for sections of the private sector to force government and/or private spending.
CARB did it for Tesla, CCC is no doubt doing it for construction companies.
Note the CCC – roughly 1/10th of its people (120 total) are directors getting paid $150K-$200K a year.
So it isn’t a bureaucracy so much as a rubber stamp outfit which has lawmaking capabilities.
CCC and CARB lawmaking rules allows the pols in Sacramento not to have their fingerprints at the crime scene.
See also the California Public Utilities Commission. Five members appointed by the Governor. Something is rotten in the state of California.
Lawmaking by nameless, faceless people with no accountability to the taxpayers or voters.
Erosion, and coastal sand movement, has been going on long before California was ever, well, California. I’ve surfed, fished, played on, and watched the California coast for over 70 years and can say from first hand experience the ocean rise has been negligible to unnoticeable. Some beaches have grown and some have shrunk as we develop and change parts of the coastline. Most notable is the disappearing wetlands as we cut off ocean access.