Originally posted on Jennifer Marohasy’s blog.
April 22, 2022 By jennifer
I live by the sea and like walking along the coastline including scrambling over the rock ledges in Noosa National Park. All the way from Noosa to Sydney it is possible to find wave-cut platforms etched out of the sandstone towards the bottom of the cliff faces.
The sandstone is very old, thought to date from the time of the dinosaurs, perhaps 180 million years ago, but the ledges – referred to as platforms when they are wide – are much younger. Expert geologists suggest that my favourite very wide, wave-cut platform, at the bottom of the cliff face that drops down from Boiling Pot Lookout, is about 125,000 years old.
It formed when sea levels were higher, and the cutting action of waves would have brought down great lumps of rock from above. The debris would have been removed by the wash, beyond the intertidal zone. The cliff face would have been receding landward as the sea ate into it. This is how cliffs are formed, and when they are of sandstone they sometimes leave behind ledges and wave-cut platforms as relics, showing sea levels were higher in a bygone age.
For the last few years, I’ve been standing on the wide platform at the bottom of the cliff face, below the lookout, at the time of the highest tide each year. Usually, the waves smash the rocks about a metre below, never reaching me. So, I confidently snub my nose at claims of unprecedented high sea level as repeated on the nightly news and in IPCC reports. I also use it as an occasion to agree with some geologists who argue sea levels were even higher 125,000 years ago, during that period known as the Eemian.
Except this past January the highest astronomical tide corresponded with a four metre swell from ex-cyclone Seth. It was the first year I didn’t stand on the platform at the moment of the highest astronomical tide. But my dear friend Jared did. I’ve made a short film about it all, entitled ‘Washed Away’.
Australia is a good place to study sea level change. Unlike Britain, Australia wasn’t covered in an ice sheet during the last ice age. Ice sheets complicate things because when all the ice melts – as Scotland’s ice sheet did a little over 9,000 years ago – part of the landmass may gradually rebound dragging its bottom half under. So, the north of the British Isles is rising, while the south has been sinking up to 0.6mm per year for the last 1,000 years – about 60 centimetres in total since the time of William the Conqueror. The sinking of this landmass is sometimes confused with rising sea levels, and it is claimed that this is occurring due to rising carbon dioxide emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
Where I live, about halfway down the east coast of Australia, sea levels began to rise about 16,000 years ago with the melting of Antarctica. By 9,000 years ago, sea levels around the world had risen by 12,000 centimetres, or 120 metres, the equivalent of a 25-storey building! The extent of this rise dwarfs the 36-centimetre rise that occurred over the last 150 years and the subsidence in places like Lincolnshire which adds up to just a few centimetres over the same period, both of which are worrying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Indeed, it is uncontroversial, at least in peer-reviewed journals, that global sea level rise at the end of the last ice age occurred at a rate 10 times faster than the modern rate of about 3mm per year – which is about how much Scotland is rising due to isostatic rebound.
After being buried under several kilometres of ice, much of Europe and North America is experiencing uplift. For example, the ice retreated from Sweden 9,900 to 10,300 years ago and large-scale uplift is still occurring to the extent that the tidal gauge in Stockholm shows sea levels have fallen by about 50 cm over the last 129 years — an average annual rate of fall of 3.9mm per year. The uplift at Juneau, in Alaska, is even more extreme: in just 80 years sea levels have fallen by 120cm at a steady rate of minus 15mm per year. This reality jars with the notion of catastrophic sea level rise, so the IPCC ‘detrends’ the measurements from these tidal gauges, until they show sea level rise.
These numbers don’t make easy reading and may seem extraordinary, but sea levels really did rise globally by 120 metres at the end of the last ice age. Yet this inconvenient fact tends to be excluded from political summaries on climate change that rely on remodelled data.
According to the latest IPCC report on climate change – Assessment Report 6, published just before the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow late last year – global temperatures are the warmest they have been for at least the last 125,000 years. There is no mention that in between it got quite cold, and Scotland (where that meeting was held) was covered in a lot of ice.
Given the landmass of Australia has not sunk or risen much over this time period, if the IPCC report is correct the waves should cover my favourite 125,000-year-old platform each high tide and I should be washed away.
The highest tide for this year was forecast for Monday 3 January at 8.27am. A four-metre-high swell was also forecast because ex-tropical Seth was lingering just off-shore. That morning, I hesitated. I didn’t go down to the platform and risk being washed away.
Instead, I positioned myself up a ledge and filmed Jared walking around to the platform to be there for the moment of the highest tide.
There are ledges at three different heights in Noosa National Park – and along the coastline all the way to Sydney. This is evidence etched in stone that there have been times in the past when sea levels were even higher than they are now. Why? Because the climate has always changed.
**********
This is a variation of an article first published in the UK edition of The Spectator magazine on 22nd January 2022 entitled ‘Aussie Life’.
“Usually, the waves smash the rocks about a metre below, never reaching me. So, I confidently snub my nose at claims of unprecedented high sea level as repeated on the nightly news and in IPCC reports”
The relevant issue is not whether sea levels will exceed those of 125,000 years ago, or even 9000 years ago. What matters is how much they will have risen since the time we built our coastal infrastructure.
The global ocean, or even the good Earth, doesn’t care much about us mere mortals. Nature is going to do what nature is going to do and we are going along for the ride. I think we can easily solve any long term sea level rise over the centuries to come, assuming it keeps warming. And we can’t assume that anyway.
Sea level has been remarkably stable this last 1000 years, and at 2-3 mm per year on average just since the end of the LIA, nothing we have get too excited about, and something we can definitely engineer our way out of over time. We need to be honest about this and not show a pic of Jakarta subsiding 5-10 cm a year. Sea level rise has to be the most disingenuous argument in the climate change doctrine.
So explain to me Nick how the geology of Hallett Cove in South Australia can show an average SLR of 16.25mm/yr for EIGHT THOUSAND YEARS and yet what do Fort Denison and Port Arthur tide gauges show recently? After all SLR is the one true proxy to rule them all with your doomsday global warming new kid on the block theory-
Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)
You know…Statue of Liberty torch arm sticking out of the sea and all that catastrophism jazz?
Good point!
And for that matter we have long series of measurements that can be analysed:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?plot=50yr&id=680-140
Well it seams like a periodicity not related to any CO2 emission.
Adept and go on living!
“Adapt”, Perhaps being Adept at Adapting.
20 centimeters (8 inches) per century
20 centimeters per century unless you’ve built on a swamp, the population is exploding, and you’re pumping groundwater like mad, Hans.
–
Ah! But then all you need to do is stop emitting CO2 and the problem goes away, or so I’m told. Hallelujah! We’re saved!
😉 and another one 😉
That does not impact on whether or not flora and Fauna survive, which they (including humans) will. It isn inconvenience to coastal dwellers but they’ve coped with much worse in the Las 10k years.
It will have an impact on insurance companies, which is probably not an altogether bad thing.
Stop confusing inonvenien with life threatening disaster, slowly rising sea levels in parts of the the world can be adapted to.
Nick,
There is no meaningful global average for local relative sea level.
The discussion by the IPCC is formulated in terms of global average (eustatic) sea level.
Even assuming that this statistic can be estimated accurately, it has little practical policy value.
Local relative sea change is all that counts for purposes of coastal planning (which is what you are referencing in your last sentence).
Local relative sea level change is highly variable worldwide depending on the differing rates at which particular coasts are undergoing tectonic uplift or subsidence.
Thank You.
“What matters is how much they will have risen since the time we built our coastal infrastructure.”
Very little !
Glad you admit that the adjusted satellite sea level data has no meaning, though.
Tide gauges show a constant rise of about 1.5-2mm per year.
Are you scared yet !!
Is it time to PANIC !
Nick , did you know that the geomorphology of the NSW coast show a high stand some 1-1.5m higher than now only a few thousand years ago.
The moneymen and the elites know perfectly well that sea level rise is insignificant. The Obamas have just purchased a beachfront mansion for $14m at Martha’s Vineyard which is only about a meter above high tide.
Nick, the data and geology show that the sea level has dropped since the Holocene optimum, quite a bit more than it has risen since warming from the Little Ice Age. These processes do not appear to have been a function of CO2 concentration in the air, since you believe that CO2 was fairly constant until recently. There is a small contribution to sea level rise from the 1°C of warming we may have added to the natural warming caused rise. It is small enough that modern technology will be able to address it. The two big factors are entirely man-made but have nothing to do with climate. Water pumped from beneath the city to support the population (New Orleans is a classic example) causes much more subsidence than the sea level rise. Location of cities in spots that are prone to flooding from storm surges is the other. Every city built on a barrier island is in this category, as are the cities built on deltas. It took the great hurricane of 1900 to wipe out Galveston Island (then the big city in the region) to convince people to move the center of population to Houston, 50 miles inland. We still get flooding from hurricane storm surges but the floods do not cover the entire city in 12′ of water. So what really matters is why we choose to build infrastructure in such poor places, not the much-hyped but actually gentle sea level rise.
“What matters is how much they will have risen since the time we built our coastal infrastructure.”
Have a chat with people like the Dutch
“What matters is how much they will have risen since the time we built our coastal infrastructure.”
Is important because proves how stupid we have been.
I don’t think such prove is needed- it’s obvious humans have been and continue to be quite stupid.
This largely related to governments. One might call government stupidity generating machines. And generating capacity of government have not diminished, but rather seems to be ever increasing.
And we don’t have to have WWIII to prove this point.
People have known for very long time that storms can occur and tides can vary from lowest and highest levels.
Sea levels have risen by about 8″ recently and in another hundred years, sea could rise more than 8″ but unless you want to take the risk, one should give about 2 meter margin. And even 2 meter margin is not completely safe.
A problem is other people are effectively paying for risks that rich beach property owners decide to take.
Or govt generate stupidity in many forms.
It is crystal clear that you are living in the southern tip of New Amsterdam and the rest of the island is a forest; if I’m wrong, then you are writting to us from a time machine that landed in Chicago in the last years of the 19th century…
… and you are very concerned with what will happen in the future decades, so you are advising your city council to not allow building near the coasline…
Nick lives a long, long way from any beach.
With a mountain range in between.
SLR would be the last thing in the world Nick should be worried about.
You left out and the turnover and replacement rate of our coastal infrastructure and whether anyone cares. There are hundreds of ghost towns scattered around Australia just because you had infrastructure somewhere is meaningless.
Nick, if sea level normally is higher, and sometimes much lower, then saying an anthropogenic signal in current sea level data means we need to cripple our economies, mostly to the detriment of working families, is a lie and you are tilting at windmills. Think about it.
Very little.
All good then.
It is my understanding that during an ice age (recent 3 Ma) temperature and sea level are much more variable between two interglacial moments. So if we care about coastal infrastructure, we want a warmer Earth without ice shelves like Greenland or Antarctica, as was normal for most of the last 200 million years.
Mr. Stokes: You correctly saw that the subject has gotta be changed, and quick! If rock formations from 120,000 or even 9,000 years ago demonstrate that your pet CO2 human caused warming theory is false, then making them “irrelevant” is essential. If the sea level stabilized at levels that carved these formations, then it changed to carve out at another level, it’s quite clear that the sea level doesn’t go up and down steadily (with CO2), instead it rises (or falls) quickly (in geo time). In other words, if looking back (like a geologist would) disproves AGW, the Nick must jump in, be the first comment (1), and say it’s not relevant.
It’s too relevant is what he knows.
Nick, your ignorance is, sometimes, astounding considering other comments from you with a higher level. It’s a risk of trying to be a everythingologist… So translating your phrase, the problem is not the nature being doing, with less intensity, what has ever done but instead, not doing what we want it to do! Considering you’re previous positions, you understand that this does not link that much to “we are causing it all with CO2” thing that you are always vociferating.
“What matters is how much they will have risen since the time we built our coastal infrastructure.”
What matters is low long rising tides take to make that infrastructure unusable vs how long it takes to become unusable via natural depreciation.
Eventually infrastructure needs major repair and so we instead rebuild it further back from the ocean at that time. As has always been done.
Congratulations, Nick, you inspired about 30 replies, moving griff to second place.
You need to channel Willis’s standard request. That they respond to what you are actually saying, Of course that would not allow them to wander away so quickly….
” The relevant issue is not whether sea levels will exceed those of 125 000 years ago , or even 9000 years ago . What matters is how much [ ‘sea levels ] will have risen since the time we built our coastal infrastructure ” ………………………….. ” how much they will have risen ” can be interpreted as an indeterminate future horizon which Nick Stokes probably thinks is comfortably vague and unfalsifiable . Human civilizational coastal infrastructure in the Mediterranean , the Black Sea , the Indian subcontinent and the Persian Gulf however , dates back at least to the Holocene Optimum centuries A number of those ancient port settlements are either underwater, or distant from the ocean and they testify to the surging and ebbing sea levels during the middle to late Holocene when atmospheric carbon dioxide was below 300 ppm …..And there is the nub of his ” Griff – riff ‘ that may explain why the serially dishonest Nick Stokes has scarpered ………Allow me to quote Judith Curry : ” notwithstanding the statements of the IPCC AR4 who assert a sea level status quo from ancient until modern times … some 3000 years ago [ the Minoan warming ] there was a further inundation …and in early Roman times levels were somewhere around current levels . Levels then rose significantly through the Roman period ” https://judithcurry.com/2011/07/12/historic-variations-in-sea-levels-part-1-from-the-holocene-to-romans/
These ledges cut usually into limestone cliffs 1-2 metres above present day sea levels appear all over SE Asia, from the Philippines to Vietnam to Thailand. I have done a lot of kayaking and boating around such and you can see what looks these recent cuts, perhaps from the Holocene High Stand, when ocean levels were 1-2 metres higher just 9,000 years ago, depending on local Geoid gravity of the local ocean water level. Local sea level is always changing a bit here and there for one reason or another.
If you look carefully, you can also see higher ledges from previous interglacials up the cliff face 15-20-30 feet, and even diving, you can sometimes see these ledges cut into the limestone rock 10-20 feet below the ocean surface. Probably could see that even deeper as oceans over eons rose and fell as the waves carved out a notch in the limestone rock when sea level was static for a period of time.
It is literally everywhere in SE Asia, except where some deformity had the limestone sinking or uplifting and making it even more or less pronounced in 10,000 years. I ask the locals what caused this, and they say, mmm….good question, it must be from all the storm waves and typhoons over time. When I tell them that the ocean level must have been 1-2 M higher in the the last 10,000 years, they smile and ask where the water came from? From the polar ice sheets, or vice versus. And used to be almost 400 feet lower. And they smile some more.
I tell them where I come from, the winter temps are sometimes twice as cold as the freezer, (-40) and we spend all day working or playing outdoors dressed up in warm clothes sometimes and they start to shiver in +35 C. I do too just thinking about it.
A couple of weeks ago I was on the island of Curaçao,and I could see where the sea had eaten onto the rock face past the housing built next to the beach, way above sea level.
E2, here is photo of an island off Zanzibar showing how much the ocean dropped around 130,000 yrs ago.
Where I live, about halfway down the east coast of Australia, sea levels began to rise about 16,000 years ago with the melting of Antarctica. By 9,000 years ago, sea levels around the world had risen by 12,000 centimetres, or 120 metres, the equivalent of a 25-storey building!
Or as the geology of Hallett Cove a southern suburb of Adelaide shows-
“Shore platform
The level shore platform has been eroded by wave action across the rocky coastline during the past 7000 years. The big fold was formed during the mountain building about 500 million years ago. During the Recent ice age about 20 000 years ago, sea level was about 130 metres lower than today and South Australia’s coastline was about 150 kilometres south of where Victor Harbor now is. The ice cap started to melt about 15 000 years ago. Sea level began to rise and reached its present level about 6000–7000 years ago”
Brochure titled-
‘Hallett Cove Geological Trail…..A walking trail through a geological site
Government of South Australia
Primary Industries and Resources SA 2010’
As the brochure begins with-
‘Introduction
Hallett Cove is one of the best known geological sites in Australia, because of the evidence of an ancient glaciation discovered in 1875 by Professor Ralph Tate from the University of Adelaide. The polished and striated glacial pavements, and sediments associated with the glaciation, are now known throughout the world.
The area has been declared a Geological Monument by the Geological Society of Australia and placed on both the South Australian Heritage Register and the former Register of the National Estate because of its significance for educational and scientific purposes.
Conservation of the site to protect the glacial pavements commenced in 1960 with acquisition of a strip of coastline, named the Sandison Reserve, by the National Trust. When subdivision for housing threatened the site, the State and Federal Governments acquired and purchased adjoining land which was dedicated as the Hallett Cove Conservation Park in 1976.’
Seems to fit rather well with your observations Jennifer
This is evidence etched in stone that there have been times in the past when sea levels were even higher than they are now. Why? Because the climate has always changed.
Of course the climate has always changed… the issue is it is now rapidly changing from a new, additional climate driver on top of past/natural processes – human CO2
And that’s bad because?…….
Tell us how rapidly Griff and where do you claim this is happening?
Here griff-
The 10 Most Expensive Houses in Australia (stayathomemum.com.au)
That’s what the movers and shakers think of your Noahs Ark theory. Call me when all those seaside/esplanade deniers start fire-saling and heading for the Blue Mountains won’t you.
Looks like we’ve hit the ‘exacta’ today – both Nick and griff have honored us with their observations.
“Observations”?
Doesn’t that mean actually seeing something?
Which would exclude global slr.
“Regurgitations” might be a better description of what Nick, Griff , etc al post here.
It can also mean “pronouncements or opinions”… oh, wait..
Atlassian Shrugged-
Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes Buys Australia’s Most Expensive Home (insider.com)
You have to wonder what sort of reflection these climate changers see in the mirror shaving every morning.
Mike hasn’t used a shaving implement since 1998.
“the issue is it is now rapidly changing from a new, additional climate driver on top of past/natural processes – human CO2”
High farce from griff.
No, it is NOT changing rapidly.
And no, CO2 is NOT the cause of the very slight warming since the LIA.
The tide gauges show there is no rapid change and no acceleration. Let’s stick to the data.
“the issue is it is now rapidly…”
…one of increasing levels of mental illness and climate psychosis through IPCRESS – and as you know, griff, it really does work.
Even if we say the climate is changing rapidly in sea level rise it’s such snail pace no-one gives a toss except full on greentards.
Except nothing is changing rapidly, same today as a decade ago, same as 5 decades ago.
Just heard one of your clown climate scientologists on the radio claim sea level rise is 5-10x faster than a decade ago, i could not get through to challenge him where he’s seeing this as that is an obvious lie.
Your people, lying and breathing
Hm. Who to believe? “griff”? Or
Richard S. Lindzen:
The notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope. The fact that the developed world went into hysterics over changes in global mean temperature anomaly of a few tenths of a degree will astound future generations. Such hysteria simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, …
… there have been previous periods that appear to have been warmer than the present despite CO2 levels being lower than they are now. …
For small changes in climate associated with tenths of a degree, there is no need for any external cause. The earth is never exactly in equilibrium. The motions of the massive oceans where heat is moved between deep layers and the surface provides variability on time scales from years to centuries. Recent work (Tsonis et al, 2007), suggests that this variability is enough to account for all climate change since the 19th Century.
For warming since 1979, there is a further problem. The dominant role of cumulus convection in the tropics requires that temperature approximately follow what is called a moist adiabatic profile. This requires that warming in the tropical upper troposphere be 2-3 times greater than at the surface. Indeed, all models do show this,
but the data doesn’t … .
(Source: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/richard-lindzen-a-case-against-precipitous-climate-action/ )
The evidence of higher sea levels in the medieval warm period is all around Britain. Castles are built on rocks formations and these castles usually have a sea entrance that allows resupply by boat. This is needed if the castle is seiged. All around the country these are now landlocked because sea levels are lower relative to the land. Across Europe, old ports are “silted up” and above sea level. The reality is that the sea is lower and, having no tides to wash away the earth, they have just filled up with a few hundred years of rising earth.
Someone should do a survey.
Yes Andy, you’re talking Soil Erosion – THAT is what silted up those ports, for us now and also for the Romans not least.
It’s what causes the vast majority of contemporary flooding – not only has the land lost its water absorbancy/retention but the streams and rivers are choked with silt.
This of course especaillay bad near towns and cities because there will be human-made impediments to the river flows in the shape of bridges – bridges with supporting piers that are in the water.
My old place, Carlisle in Cumbria UK being THE perfect example
Carlisle being translated as a wet patch of ground (carr) and isle being = island.
Overgrazing by sheep on the watershed of the river (Eden) that goes under the bridge at Carlisle means that rain simply pours off the land like it does an asphalt road or the roof of your house.
The main and only bridge, with substantial piers in the water, was built at the narrowest part of a wide meandering river
Then: the ‘isle’ in the place-name was talking about was an island in the river at that narrow point – the river split in two in order to get through there.
But to make the bridge shorter and cheaper to build, they actually closed the smaller of the two channels.
Then the bridge was found to be too narrow so they made it wider and the piers even bigger.
Add all that together means that when it rains heavily anywhere in north Cumbria, Carlisle floods
Observed sea-level rise is the silt at work – the silt that made it all the way to the sea.
= exactly the same process as me/you taking a bucket of water and the adding handfulls of sand into it.
The water level in the bucket will rise and overflow the bucket.
Erosion isn’t some new thing, Peta. The Mississippi River delta is estimated to be 100 million years old. The sea level rise since the end of the Little Ice Age is not owing to erosion. Erosion was happening during the LIA too, when the sea level was falling. What, did silt at the bottom of the ocean magically crawl back up onto the land during that time? No, Peta, the small sea level rise since the LIA is from glacier and ice sheet melt and thermal expansion of sea water. Nothing to get your panties in a bunch over.
You’ve been schooled on all this before yet you persist in telling your lies. Seek mental health care.
My thanks to Jennifer Marohasy for sane and simple observations, recorded on video, of nature at work over a time scale that explains so many things that climate science often obscures in attempts to scare us into actions we may, over the long term, heavily regret. Is the sea ever at a level that can be desecribed as ‘normal’ or are we, as a species, obsessed into believing we know something now that our ancestors did not. In many ways we may know more but in many other ways we may guilty of jumping to conclusions our ancestors would have believed to be patently absurd.
In the UK we see many examples of where sea level appears to have risen alongside other examples of where it appears to have receded. Which of these tells us the story we need to take heed of? The answer is, surely, both. Do we need to be frightened into inappropriate and potentially harmful activity? The answer is, surely, No.
“ of nature at work over a time scale that explains so many things that climate science often obscures in attempts to scare us into actions we may, over the long term, heavily regret.”
Ain’t that the truth!
Ms. Lass: I agree, and I’m grateful to the host here and to J. Marhosey for continuing to search for truth. What this shows, and what Mr. Stokes feels obliged to obscure, is that puny human-caused SLR (too small to measure) will be overwhelmed by natural events that cause SLR which CAN be measured.
There are numerous papers the observe the probale sea level duing the Hoocene optimum. THis is one for the ARavbial Gulf, when the interglacial rise first overtopped the straits of Hormuz and was on the way to Baghdad, abot 2-2.5 metres above today’s level. before it reversed.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s94gh2g2lhv6i0e/Persian%20Gulf%20Sea%20Levels.pdf?dl=0
I have 20 or so papers and some garpical data from them, that relate to the actual observed temperatures, sea levels and glacier positions during the Holocene, if you would like to snarf them now, feel free.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xffozx2nfpy3sia/Interglacial%20climate%20papers.zip?dl=0
Only the observations are real. The rest is the hubris of deceit or simple incompetence..
someone should make a you tube video of scandinavia and alaska showing sea level falling . showing falling sea level in sweden in gretas world would be especially entertaining . also showing increasing land area in tropical atolls would shock a lot of you tube doomists . probably you tube would not allow such inconvenient truths to be posted .
Someone should mention to Greta that sea level isn’t a bath tub and sea level is falling in much of Sweden. Or Hudson Bay where you can see historical shorelines upland from the present shoreline just since the fur traders set upon shop in the late 17th century. Very remarkable visible evidence of isostatic rebound.
I wonder if she understands the concept of whole land masses rising and falling for various reasons, including isostatic rebound? Have met many educated people who have no idea about the planetary geoid and how gravitational factors also affect local sea level, such as magma density below it, or the Greenland Ice Sheet pulling up the Atlantic ocean all around it just due to its gravitational attraction from the ice sheet mass balance.
I wonder if she understands the fraud that climate changes zealots use by showing delta cities that are already subsiding naturally, and then with massive ground water pumping, subsidence is increasing at a furious pace. Nothing to do with actual local or global ocean level processes, but totally a subsidence issue. But to someone who has no idea, or worse, media and scientists using that as evidence of sea level rise, makes the whole dangerous sea level rise scare look real.
Jen,
Is the geology known for several metres above and below the horizontal surface? Is the lower part sandstone or non-sedimentary? What is the relative hardness of the rocks down a profile? Is there an unconformity corresponding to the cut?
Also, a surface that is near-horizontal now, as you describe, is also eroding (albeit slowly) while you look. There is no guarantee that the present height is the original wave-cut starting height. Have you made estimates of this?
I have been there a few times over the years.
Cheers Geoff.
You tell them Jennifer!
Travelling west out of Honolulu, you eventually reach the Farrington Highway. It curves around to the north, and eventually ends just before you get to the Pipeline surfing beaches on the NW corner of the island. You get close, but you can’t drive all the way there in a passenger car. You stay near the water, but still dozens of feet above the sometimes-violent surf. You can walk, though not necessarily safely, and there are interesting sights including ‘blow holes’ where water blasts upward from fissures in the rocky shore.
Shortly after you start the drive on the way back you can easily see a large cave that you likely missed on the way up. It, too, is dozens of feet above the surf. A posted sign states that the cave was formed by raging surf, when the ocean levels were high enough to reach it and that this happened during previous interglacial periods. We’re still dozens of feet away from reaching sea levels this high.
The question obviously arises, is the island subsiding, or is it stable, or maybe even lifting as the volcanos erode? Reading all the global warming scare stories about Waikiki’s beaches, one would have to assume it’s stable, or maybe even sinking.
125,000 years ago there were hippos and Elephants living along the banks of the Thames and the Rhine, also cave Lions, at 50 deg North.
THat level of warming is going to cause more sea level rise than now. You don’t need a weatherman……we know levels and rate of rise now are unexceptional and have not changed significantly during industrialisation. As CO2 is not responsible, it makes sense to use what mone y there is to defend against slight and gradual SLR , not pretend to change the global climate far more expensively, when its likely the natural and massive negative feedback of evaporation and cloud formation control by the oceans will negate anything we can do. AS it does with any effect from Greenhouse gasses.
I think the Romans are champing at the bit to start using the port of Ostia again, once the sea rises back up to where it was 2000 years ago.
I wouldn’t trust the Romans to do anything.
What have they ever done for us?
Well, fresh water aqueducts, irrigation, public sanitation, roads, legal system, etc
Well, apart from those? Peace. Well sure, peace.
Just re-watched my annual Easter religious program – L.O.B of course.
One thing bothered me watching the video.
When in the navy, my ship was hit with a rouge wave on a calm day without any warning.
I have also observed people ignoring warning signs when going out on break waters.
20k died in Japan and I have yet to see a root cause explanation.
Do not forget flash floods in the desert.
Getting washed away has nothing to do with sea level.
I plan on spending time on my own personal sand dune this summer. If the tsunami siren signals an evacuation, I am staying put. I have little confidence that the seismic will leave the the only road intact.
This called an assumed risk.
Yep. Gotta watch those red waves.
(or did you mean ‘rogue’ waves?)
70% of the earth is covered in water and yet, somehow, the human race did not drown.
Perhaps they walked away from the water, just as they do today.
All of them but eight drowned.
Nils-Axel Morner made the same point, from other coastal notches above the waterline in various Pacific islands including Fiji.
He found that sea level had been ~70cm higher in the 16-17th centuries (compared to now) – this is when Jennifer Marohasy’s notch at Noosa was formed.
Then sea level fell 50cm (relative to present) in the 18 century, before rising to current levels and oscillating a bit since then.
Our Oceans-Our Future: New Evidence-based Sea Level Records from the Fiji Islands for the Last 500 years Indicating Rotational Eustasy and Absence of a Present Rise in Sea Level (graphyonline.com)
And to put it into perspective, 3mm/yr is about 1/10th of the average annual lateral movement of the continental plates, which nobody gets too excited about — even those building infrastructure.
I liked the movie, but it was a bit lacking in suspense, plot development, and intrigue. Maybe if Jared could have faked being washed away, and you spotted him in a marketplace…
Bruce, It would be wonderful if you join the team as script writer. :-).
Mr. Cobb: Sounds like a heist flick (to someone who loves heist flicks). Or a movie about the movies! Like Get Shorty!! How tall are you?
There are a few interesting facts in this post, and the subsequent comments, of which I personally, was in total ignorance. Thanks to all of you. My education continues beyond age 86.
A star (2 stars, actually) is born! (((applause!)))
Well done, Ms. Marohasy.
You succinctly summarized the key facts keeping it simple enough for the general public to attend to and understand.
Your lovely voice is well-modulated and your almost-sarcastic tone was perfect for addressing the wildly unfounded assertions of the AGWers.
Cute outfit and hair (you — Jared was okay, heh). Jared’s white T-shirt was highly effective — could see him very well.
Nice variety of shots (over – close – far, etc.).
Excellent quality videography, lighting, framing, etc. and graphics with super-helpful, nicely done, “You are here” pointers.
And, best of all (for this American), thoroughly enjoyed your delightful accents (yes, yes, I know, it is we who have the accent 🙂 ).
THANK YOU for sharing this.
Best wishes for success in getting the truth out,
Janice
When asked about rising sea levels – I say – so what! – when working on the east coast of Southern Africa I was investigating old river channels that extended kilometres out to sea and depths of up to 120metres or so below current sea levels. (We called them Paleo-channels) As a Geologist I was also aware of the many examples of wave cut platforms (just like Jennifer’s) well above sea level. Today in Australia you can drive along the coastal road in WA and see the extensive cliff formations well back from the coast. The problem people have is that they expect instant impacts from geological processes but don’t understand that they take 100,000’s of years and in some cases millions. They seem to think that sea level should be static – but it never has been. The overtopping of the Bosporus took place about 9000 years ago as the Earth recovered from the last glaciation and sea levels rose from that 120m below present to the point where the Black Sea turned from freshwater lake to saline sea. This can be charted in time by archaeology as well and is the origin of all the middle eastern flood stories. The shoreline would have advanced by around 3 to 5 kilometres a day! Imagine that – you walk all day that distance then have to keep doing it day after day. Puts 3mm per year into the shade. Jennifer is spot on and those who push the global warming meme should just stop and think for a bit.