Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 17 January 2024 — 1800 words/7 minutes
Don’t you love it when new words are introduced into the language? I do, especially when the inventor of a new word is Google Translate.
This issue is raised by tangentially by Dr. Judith Hubbard [ @JudithGeology ] in a Xweet (pronounced ‘sweet’?) here:
The word “landification” doesn’t exist in English, but appears on this Google-translated webpage (from Japanese).
Long-time readers will know how fussy I can be: I checked to make sure that it was Google Translate that made up the word. If you are as fussy as I am, compare these two versions: Google Translate version of the Japanese page with the English version provided by the publisher. The English page uses the phrase “Land emergence”. We’ll save this little incident for a future essay on the wide latitude accepted when dealing with the alleged intellectual value of an AI that hallucinates and ”makes stuff up”.
The topic is brought up by the inestimable Roger Pielke Jr. who is one of the few climate scientists that straddles the line between the Climate Crisis crowd and the Climate Realist crowd, at least when seen in the public arena. “Love ‘im or hate ‘im”, he is a very effective communicator with a huge presence and broad influence. The more often he speaks out, the closer he moves towards the Climate Realism corner—my corner—of the climate debate triangle.
Triangle? Yes, the Climate Debate TriangleTM — the Climate Crisis crowd in one corner, the Climate Skeptics in another, and the Climate Realists in the third. I prefer the triangle view to the two-pole view and think it reflects the ongoing differences of opinion and viewpoint far better. However, you may prefer to see it as a square, if you want to include (who knows why…) the Climate Crazies (these are the “edgers”, those way out on the edges of their respective viewpoints, such as “We are all doomed, five years left, the Earth is on fire, give up and die!” sliding down to “The whole thing is an utter hoax, there has been no warming and never will be!”. The total range of opinions is galactic in scale.
So, Landification? “the emergence of new land area.”
In the Climate Crisis world, only land-loss is considered. Land which is being eroded away by the ongoing dynamics between the waters and the dry land at the edges of the seas, rivers and lakes. Of course, this includes dry land that is being covered by water as the surface levels of various bodies of water – seas, oceans – rise. We are all familiar with the usual suspects: Low Lying Islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans or the disappearing deltas of great rivers that have been channelized. Even lesser erosion losses have been blamed on climate change, such as that of villages built on river bends in Alaska.
The other side of the coin is “land emergence” — or the gaining of dry land. How does this happen? Ask a geologist. Continental masses rise up, coral islands and reefs accrete (gain) sand and expand their shores, oceanic volcanoes grow and poke their heads above the waters and river deltas build up through deposition sediment washed down by the water.
Pielke Jr. dives into the question based on the paper noted in Dr. Hubbard’s xweet: “Coastline change caused by the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake detected by ALOS-2 SAR satellite image (Jan. 4, 2024)” [ original Japanese version here ]. Asking: “What are long-term trends in global landification?
In the process, Pielke Jr. exposed a bit of pure-evil NASA propaganda aimed at the youngest of our children, the subject of my OpEd the other day.
But what is this whole thing about Land Emergence? Is it real? Is there more land today than 20 or 50 or 100 years ago? Really? We know sea levels have risen anywhere between 8 and 12 inches over the last century. That must have reduced the amount of dry land. Yes? No?
The research question of the Japanese-led study was coastline change caused by the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake. The earthquake happened on New Year’s Day 2024, and the paper was published before 12 January 2024. Marvelous rapid research starting with posing an important question through collecting relevant information, collating and writing up that information in a scientifically useful way followed by bi-lingual publication – all in less than two weeks — under the auspices of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan. The paper is almost entirely comprised of before and after satellite photos of the shorelines affected.
It concludes “The shoreline shifted seaward approximately 200 m at most.” That’s a lot of new land.
Is this the only study about land emergence? No.
Yongjing . Mao et al (2021) explored the use of Google Earth to determine changes in land area at high tide on coasts, helping to eliminate the confusion that can be caused by large-area tidal flats.
Nienhuis et al. (2020) — “Global-scale human impact on delta morphology has led to net land area gain” — studied river deltas and found “Here we show how the morphology of about 11,000 coastal deltas worldwide, ranging from small bayhead deltas to mega-deltas, has been affected by river damming and deforestation. We introduce a model that shows that present-day delta morphology varies across a continuum between wave (about 80 per cent), tide (around 10 per cent) and river (about 10 per cent) dominance, but that most large deltas are tide- and river-dominated. Over the past 30 years, despite sea-level rise, deltas globally have experienced a net land gain of 54 ± 12 square kilometres per year (2 standard deviations), with the largest 1 per cent of deltas being responsible for 30 per cent of all net land area gains.” And that’s another additional 1620 km2 of land surface.
In Southeast Asia, Anthony et al. (2015) found evidence that various human activities have adversely affected land area of the Mekong Delta through “(1) a reported significant decrease in coastal surface suspended sediment from the Mekong that may be linked to dam retention of its sediment, (2) large-scale commercial sand mining in the river and delta channels and (3) subsidence due to groundwater extraction” resulting a loss of land area.
You may recall studies finding similar results about the U.S.’s Mississippi Delta covered in posts here at WUWT.
Holdaway et al. (2021) — “Global-scale changes in the area of atoll islands during the 21st century“ — found “As a result, the global response of atoll islands coincident with sea level rise remains uncertain. Using rich collections of Landsat imagery, this study analyses changes in land area on 221 atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Results show that, between 2000 and 2017, the total land area on these atolls has increased by 61.74 km2 (6.1 %) from 1007.60 km2 to 1069.35 km2. Most of the change in land area resulted from island building within the Maldives and on atolls in the South China Sea. Since 2000, the Maldives have added 37.50 km2 of land area, while 16.57 km2 of new islands have appeared within the South China Seas Spratly and Paracel chains.”
Webin Shen et al. (2015) — “Evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land and sea level rise in recent two decades” — claims to have found that the Earth itself is expanding at a combined (land and ocean) rate of “0.35 ± 0.47 mm/a in recent two decades.” [Note: I have very little faith in the results of this particular study, as it was performed in an openly stated attempt to justify satellite calculated SLR of 3.4 mm/yr when in-situ physically-measured SLR is approximately 2 mm/yr — kh] They may be right in their finding that the Earth is expanding ever so slightly, which would result in more land area.
Donchyts et al. (2016) — “Earth’s surface water change over the past 30 years“ — came to the conclusion that “Earth’s surface gained 115,000 km2 of water and 173,000 km2 of land over the past 30 years, including 20,135 km2 of water and 33,700 km2 of land in coastal areas.”
I have studied and written a great deal about sea levels, their rise and fall, and the impacts these might have in general and on specific locations. On the whole, I agree with Pielke Jr. on this:
“Sea level rise is important to coastal management. Of this, there is no doubt — it will continue, regardless of what changes are made to energy policies. Sea level rise will cause impacts around the world and require adaptation regardless what is done on global energy policies. …. At the same time, the consequences of sea level rise for coasts around the world is not as simple as rising seas inexorably encroaching upon static land. Human influences such as sedimentation and reclamation make a big difference on outcomes. So too do natural processes of erosion and deposition.”
Bottom Lines:
1. The consensus view, regardless of the contention regarding the rate of rise, that rising sea levels will simply continue to submerge land under the sea and cause land loss through eroding land edges is not factual and is not supported by physical evidence.
2. The Earth is gaining land area despite rising sea levels.
3. Yet again, the physical evidence is counter-intuitive [contrary to intuition or to common-sense expectation (but often nevertheless true)] and once more runs contrary to the general worldview presented by the IPCC and its acolytes.
4. The points above do not obviate the fact that many low-lying cities have been built in harm’s way, built on ephemeral sand bars, in danger of massive destruction by hurricane winds and storm surge, and others are in danger of simple being flooded even by the slow gradual rising sea levels of the last century. These areas, with Miami, Florida as a good example, need to begin adaptation and mitigation efforts yesterday (actually, they should have begun decades ago).
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Author’s Note:
Seeing every issue as black-or-white is a very serious cognitive error. Almost nothing, even some moral issues, are almost never so clear cut.
The seas are rising. The non-linear dynamical interactions of the atmosphere-ocean coupled system means that there will be storms – some of them unimaginably powerful. This is unavoidable – Lorentz demonstrated this in the 1960s. We do our societies harm if we ignore this.
But, the fact of rising seas does not mean “millions are going to eventually drown”. That is a bizarre-world pronouncement of the Climate Crazies, like those who show maps of the calculated sea levels “if all the ice in Greenland were to melt”.
I wrote a chapter on sea level rise for the CLINTEL publication: The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC. (also here) Chapter 5: Accelerated Sea Level Rise: Not So Fast. In it, I show that the IPCC-consensus view is not supported by physical measurements of the actual levels of the sea surface where it hits the land. Sea levels are rising, but they are not accelerating, not rising faster or slower.
And, the Earth is gaining land area, not losing it.
Thanks for reading.
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Failing to note corals can grow faster than current sea level rises is a major error, and I would argue deliberate.
Tom ==> Inmost cases, the corals grow around the islands. Parrotfish bite little bits of the corals for the algae on them….then poop out little bits of coral sand. That sand then gets washed up to build the sand-based island or add to the snad previoously washed up on an old coral reef…
more or less.
And yes, corals grow upward to keep their upper surfaces the distance they required from the surface.
Charles Darwin’s first major study on atolls was based on that obervation.
Kip, I commented late on growth of deltas in some detail in your earlier piece on rising sealevel. I criticized NASA showing the loss of the Mississippi delta in their miseducation of children page. You commented that the Core of Engineers were confounding the situation with channel digging. At least it should be comforting that if they cease this work, the river will restore it. It certainly isn’t a global warming issue.
There have been a lot of alarm pieces on submergence of the Ganges, too. BTW, a possible item that would benefit from your attention to it would be the Miraculous Greening and its contribution to expanded habitat. One chapter would be on the recovery of Bengal tigers which had been in grave decline for many decades. They have programs in India to save the tiger but in the last dozen years their numbers have increased 28% in India and 10% in the Ganges Delta of Bangladesh (without a program!). Polar bears … penguins…etc.
Tom Halla,
I would agree it is deliberate.
There was some wonderful research done nearly two decades ago which deserved further funding, but which received a cold shoulder because it did not support the “Narrative.”
There’s apparently a part of the Arctic coastline, I believe in the north of Greenland or of the Canadian Archipelago, where the isostatic rebound as ice melted was so great that it actually rose shorelines faster than the swiftly rising sea. Therefore that coastline is the one bit of coastline where we can see the coastlines of thousands of years ago.
I was especially interested in the research done along that coast because it discovered signs of human habitation along that ancient coastline. Everywhere else along the arctic coast any evidence is buried under the waters of the risen sea. Along that swiftly risen shore scientists discovered simple evidence, circles of stones with charcoal inside, that radiocarbon dated thousands of years old.
It should be noted that that coast is so far north that not even Inuit go there. Rarely is the coast ice-free. Occasionally polynyas form when southerly gales blow the sea-ice offshore, but usually the ice comes grinding back, as that cost receives the full brunt of sea-ice propelled by the crosspolar drift. The constant grinding of sea-ice creates a beach that looks very different than a beach formed by lapping waves.
The constant grinding of the ice against the shore creates an ecosystem seals avoid, and because there were no seals there were no polar bears. So 1500 pound polar bears was one worry researchers didn’t have. However there were mosquitoes, (though what blood they had to suck when there were no researchers about was not explained). However along this shore young scientists scurried. (How they got the funding to travel to one of the most remote beaches on earth I can’t say.) But they would be the last to call such a place “God forsaken”, because everywhere they looked they saw revelations.
Among these young researchers was a (back then) young lady, and she wrote a lovely paper, excited about what she had noticed. (I recall thinking to myself that in July most young ladies would go to a beach where they could show off in a bikini, but this young lady loved science, and chose a different beach.) What she noticed was that, as one walked upwards above the shoreline (and, in a sense, back in time), the geology changed. Rather than the shoreline geology created by grinding ice one saw the geology created by lapping waves. In other words, thousands of years ago the Arctic Ocean was ice free.
This was in a sense verified by the primary aim of the field study, which was apparently to collect specimens of ancient driftwood from the various beaches above the modern beach, which then would be brought south to labs, and radio carbon-dated. (This was complicated by the ancient humans, who apparently burned every stick of driftwood they could find.) Enough chips of driftwood remained to determine the date the sea had washed various levels of the rising shoreline.
But some of these eager young researchers went the extra mile. Besides determining the age of the chips of driftwood, they determined the species of tree. And some were not local. Some were from trees that only grow inland in Asia. How did they cross the Arctic Sea? Was this not evidence the sea was not covered in ice, in the past?
Although I was a witness from afar, I was as eager as they seemed to be. Surely another grant of money should allow them to return to this remote beach. I especially wanted scientific experts to join them, and to focus on the ancient humans who wandered coasts where even Inuit don’t go. But…strangely….the funding utterly dried up.
I think we know why. The fact the arctic may have been ice-free in the past, and the world did not end because of it, might contradict the current “Narrative”, which suggests that, if the arctic becomes ice-free, the world will end.
What was so important about this “Narrative”?
To return to the beginning of the point I wish to make, I believe that the denial of all these young researchers were so excited about discovering, (and to refuse to fund them further is indeed a denial), was intentional. It was deliberate.
But what good did it do? Did it not instead do harm?
Think of those young scientists, who sacrificed their summer to do a field study in a remote and uncomfortable beach, yet returned excited about what they had discovered, but who received no accolades, and instead experienced a sort of cancel culture. What did they “learn”?
And think of the rest of us. How much more we might have discovered if we had followed up on the young scientists initial expedition? How much more enlightened might we be? The Truth is up there waiting to show itself, but those who control the funding seemingly cower from Truth. They obey the “Narrative”.
Which is to say that they prefer to be stupid.
And I agree with you, their stupidity is “deliberate.”
I have long believed that sand bars, coastal barrier islands (a larger less ephemeral sand bar) and coastal wetlands are where they are for a host of geographic, topographic, geologic and hydrologic reasons. They are essentially nature’s way of providing protection for the coast from storms, storm surges and other coastal flooding events. If you choose to build in these areas, or destroy marshes and wetlands to build on the new land, don’t be terribly surprised when water finds its way into your house.
starzmom ==> Barrier islands and coastal marshes (including mangroves) do protect the land areas inland from them. They take quite a beating from storms.
We have been foolish to allow the building of modern cities on ephemeral (constantly changing, coming and going) sand bars.
“Allow”? What business of yours is it to tell someone where they can and cannot build? What we should be doing is taking away all tax funded incentives to build in such areas — such as subsidized flood insurance.
Yes, the coastal marshes and barrier islands do take quite a beating, but they have been doing so for millennia. These storms and heavy tidal surges help to clear out debris and built up detritus and ultimately rejuvenate the marshes. They are part of the cycle of life in these areas.
Coastal cities are an anachronism dating back to the time when all imported goods arrived by ship and people built along the shore to minimize the inland transportation of the imported goods and to utilize the empty ships to export things produced locally. With trains, airplanes, trucks, and digitial intellectual property there is much less need to depend on ports to handle ocean-going ships. Yet, airports and railway stations are still built near boat docks.
The word ‘airport’ is an anachronism, going back to the early days of commercial travel when passenger planes were mostly seaplanes for easier take-off and landing. The places were, quite literally, built at ports but for passenger aircraft, hence air-ports.
Good review, Kip. The ups and downs reminds me of the Geology textbook, by author Peter Wyllie “The Dynamic Earth”. There is another type of “Landification” attempt by Indigenous Groups. As they remove dams from the Klamath River, in northern California, and as they plan to remove dams along the lower Snake River, between Idaho and Oregon, as the water level goes down, the Indigenous Groups are claiming the emerging land. Might be a little complicated legally?
Ron ==> Let them have it … but only if it was already within the boundaries of their sovereignty. The destruction of the dams, if they were reliably producing electricity, it anti-civilization. The little dams, and we have lots of them here in NY, that used to produce a bit of water or electric power for a factory or some such, should go. But, like changing the past by time travel, you have to give up the present.
The loss is to the dam’s lake, the wildlife therein, the recreation opportunities, and the changes that will happen downstream, not always those we intended.
“The little dams, and we have lots of them here in NY, that used to produce a bit of water or electric power for a factory or some such, should go.”
_____________________________________________________
Who says they should go? The “Greenies” who want the return of wilderness everywhere? But the beaver dams are OK?
Perhaps some should go- many are not in great shape and would be very expensive to fix. Those is good condition ought to remain, IMHO. A pond behind a dam has more biodiversity and aesthetic interest and recreational opportunities than an unrestrained river or stream. Each of course needs to be evaluated on many considerations.
Restoring the beaver here in West Virginia would be catastrophic to our farm economy. We have an awful lot of wide, very flat river valleys that make excellent farm land here in the Ridge and Valley region of eastern West Virginia. There is up to 20 ft of top soil in some areas. My guess is that most are due to thousands of years of hard work by the beaver.
However, at least one study in Wyoming showed that restoring the beaver to one of the creeks at the foot hills of the front range had excellent results and improved both the stream and surrounding are. Of course they had to haul in slash for food and construction material for a couple of years before the beaver got settled.
My observations of the organic-rich fill in the flat-bottomed valleys in the Black Hills of South Dakota suggest that most were created by beaver ponds. Today they are prized by the well-healed gentry moving into the area as a place to ride and pasture their horses. Allowing beaver to re-populate the valleys would ruin it for those wanting to play at being urban cowboys.
Great article Kip, thank you for your always inciteful posts.
“The little dams, and we have lots of them here in NY, that used to produce a bit of water or electric power for a factory or some such, should go.”
And they will, with time, go on their own. No need to hurry the process. Many of them probably already have by filling with silt or the action of water doing what it does.
If I lived in an area where old mill ponds existed, I would love to have my own Pelton water wheel generator to provide almost FREE electricity 24/7/365. Those homes do exist in NY and New England.
Drake ==> Opinion on these no longer in use little dams varies widely. We have a major one in my current home town that is no longer owned by anyone….and if it were to collapse, would wipe out an entire neighborhood, drain the town lake, and alter the upstream environment in a major way.
If it were to need repair, there is no one to pay for it.
Quite complex.
Drake ==> In the Dominican Republic, my wife and I arraigned a project that used the run of river to supply water to a Pelton wheel powered generator that eventually supplied 40 amp 120 VAC service to 21 homes. The Pelton Wheel was a local product of a welder who made many of them for this type of project.
I’m joining a partnership with Japanese indigenous Katana Ninja tribes to claim the 200 meters on new waterfront property!
“Ninja Real Estate Grabbing” in the enterprise.
positions available – act NOW!
; >)
I feature a list of at least a dozen climate and energy article titles and links on my blog every day. Every Pielke article I have been able to find for free was recommended as a 100% perfect batting average. H. Sterling Burnett is also 100%. Your average is very high too. This article will be recommended today — the best one of the day..
Willie E. also has a high batting average … but his last article featured a long satire introduction that was not funny, followed by a good article.
i WILL CONTINUE TO REMIND HOM OF THIS FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. That’s why Al Gore invented the internet.
Your triangle was interesting,
I am also interested in other opinions.
My own opinion is different
Three types of climate buffs
(1) We believe the government 100%
(aka Climate Howlers)
(2) We believe the government
is lying 100% of the time
(aka conservative science deniers)
(3) Those who try to differentiate between
Climate Science
Junk Science
Wild Guess Long term Climate Predictions
(aka Climate Realists)
I try to be a Climate Realist, and base my conclusions on real climate science. But there is not much progress in real climate science for the past 50 years, since progress from the use of weather satellites in the 1970s.
My study of climate history and science leads to these conclusions:
There is a greenhouse effect
Manmade CO2 emissions add to it
More warming is beneficial for humans and animals
More CO2 is beneficial for plants
The current climate is the best climate for humans, animals, and especially plants, in at least 5000 years, We should be CELEBRATING the current climate, and hoping for MORE CO2 and MORE warming in the future.
I say:
The climate will get warmer,
unless it gets colder
Scientists say, and they could never be wrong
Climate change will kill your dog
EV EMF is Pollution
— Driving an EV will make a man’s hair fall out
— Driving an EV will make 97% of women have an urge to smoke big, fat Cuban cigars
Ricahrd ==> And that’s a lot to say!
I like the cigar prediction. The should smoke Dominican cigars, better than Cuban.
Back in the ’60s I used to smoke marijuana cigars. 🙂
Hand rolled them myself! 🙂
“I try to be a Climate Realist, and base my conclusions on real climate science.”
I see no evidence that is the case.
You follow AGW memes on many important points and DENY science and data when it counters your lack of understanding.
I have never observed any signs of intelligence in your insult comments
What is “real climate science?” Does poorly designed and executed research qualify? Does it qualify if Chamberlain’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses isn’t applied when it comes to analysis of observations because they ‘knew’ the answer before they started the research? Are computer models with minimal or inadequate field measurements ‘real’ science? Is science, based on measurements and subsequent calculations with error bars larger than the nominal measurements, ‘real’ science or an attempt to make beliefs look like actual science? Can someone who is a political activist, and not the classic “disinterested observer,” actually do trustworthy scientific research?
Real climate science starts by not listening to your whining
Mark Twain is quoted as saying, “Buy all the land you can get, they ain’t making any more.”
Google Search on [Napier NZ earth quake new land]
New Zealand 1931 Hawkes Bay Earthquake. 2,000+ hectares of new land
Google search on “Boston Harbor New Land” [Images]
Lots of illustrations of Boston Harbor filled in since the 18th century
Lots of places like San Francisco Bay are being filled in.
My house sits on land fill.
Steve ==> Yes, there are wonderful maps of the Boston area, and of the New York City area, showing how much land was created by filling. even back when there was no heavy Earth-moving equipment. One time a Boston entrepreneur bought a hill and had it moved, wagon load at a time, to fill in a piece of the harbor.
No machines- just, mostly, extremely hard working LEGAL immigrants- mostly Irish and Italian. And it was a better life than where they came from. And, they got no welfare.
Joseph ==> Sometimes we bemoan the hard work and low wages of the (mostly) men who hand dug the canals, built roadbeds, and moved mountains of dirt and rock — but they were happy to have work that paid a reliable wage and put food on the table for themselves and their families.
In my work in the humanitarian field in the 3rd World, I found nothing was more desired (and needed) than good steady work that paid wages that could be counted on every week. It is employment that raises standards of living. Jobs Jobs Jobs — and 24/7 electrical power.
The MOST important aspect of “good (hard) steady work (imo) is the satisfaction/well-being aspect.
Which results in more ‘contented souls’ and fewer ‘aggravated souls’. (again, my opinion)
exactly- less likely to get into trouble of all sorts
Do you live in Foster City?
No
Iirc San Francisco has huge areas that are landfill – going back 150 years when they sank boat hulks and filled in between them.
Continents average 1000 metres in elevation. Oceans average depth is -3500 metres. This results in a downward sinking force under continents and an uplifting force on the sea floor. Hydraulically…transmitted in the liquid magma under the crust. The planet is 70% ocean, 30% water.
Thus if the sea floor rises 3 mm, the continents sink 7 mm. The sea level of the constant volume oceans would thus appear to rise 7 mm…..when your satellite sounding compares its measured sea level to ground stations. The Earth’s crust moves up and down every day by about a foot due to tidal waves in the crust caused by rotation of the Earth/Moon pair around its barocentre, so these seemingly trivial forces eventually cause the ocean to appear to rise compared to some average “sea level” that mankind thinks is “zero”. Offset by continental drift, volcanic eruptions, coral island building, and so on….So you don’t believe the crust could move up or down as a result of weight? Well, glacial rebound is accepted.
I throw this out here for WUWT denizens to pick holes in this concept (it being somewhat novel).
Doug MacKenzie
“The Earth’s crust moves up and down every day by about a foot due to tidal waves in the crust caused by rotation of the Earth/Moon pair around its barocentre…”
I didn’t know about these “earth tides” until relatively recently when checking ocean tide data. In the atmosphere at each location, there is a gain/loss of potential energy of about 8.6 Watt-hours per square meter for a foot of rise/fall. So the effect is about +/- 0.7 W/m^2 (varying cyclically.) A pretty small number, until you realize that the claimed attribution of “warming” to incremental CO2 is based on a “forcing” rising on the order of 0.035 W/m^2 per year. The models, of course, have to assume a fixed elevation for both land and ocean surfaces.
But what does potential energy have to do with attribution anyway? That is why I made this video. The full explanation is in the description box.
https://youtu.be/hDurP-4gVrY
“Thus if the sea floor rises 3 mm, the continents sink 7 mm. The sea level of the constant volume oceans would thus appear to rise 7 mm”
I would think 3 + 7 = 10 mm would be what appears if the sea floor and thus the sea surface rises 3 mm and the land sinks 7 mm.
You just discovered Soil Erosion. ##
That was the exact question I put into here aaaaages ago
i.e if all the land (average height 1,000m) fell into the water (average depth 4,000m), the ocean would then be 3,000 metres deep and the land be = zero metres height
But how would you view that..
As an ocean dweller you’d be horrified that your ocean had sank by 1,000m = that much less water above your head
As a land dweller, you’d be even more horrified and assert that the ocean had risen by 1,000m and you had that much less (= zero) land beneath your feet
So who is right in that argument?
(Has anyone, you surely have, mixed up small batches of cement/mortar/concrete, just on the ground using a shovel?
i.e. You make a pile of sand, mix in some cement, THEN, make a hole in the pile and add water.
Don’t you know the fun to be had keeping the water in among the sand/cement mixture while you persuade them to make ‘nice mortar’
= so much like being a kid again playing on the beach.
Same thing is what’s going on here)
With due respect to all concerned but they are living in/on Flatland, the land area might increase, but the land height is falling. (Flatlanders don’t ‘do’ height of course)
This being Archimedes Principle and would be the true way of measuring sea level rise.
>>C’mon, where are all the lovely Sputniks on this?
Can it be that difficult to keep a record of the amount of (from space) visible land and its average elevation.
From that you get a ‘Land Volume’ figure.
if its decreasing, the sea is rising and vice-versa
No need to though and anyway, NASA would make the data up to suit their agenda..
It’s easy to tell that Land Volume is decreasing – every time we see a picture of flood water it is red/brown/orange/muddy
That colouration is ‘land’ being washed into the sea.
It really is that very very simple, anyone and everyone can see it but no-one wants to see it. The Denial is palpable. They think brown water is ‘normal’
Likewise, anyone can work out, that enough mud is going into the ocean (see ## below) to raise the water by more than what’s being measured.
The Ocean Is Contracting/Cooling and what’s being measured is Archimedes in action
(##) Is it still true that Bangladesh is expanding in area by 20km² (5,000acres) annually and exactly because of soil erosion.
And because that new land is made of silt removed from soils/ground/farms further inland, it is immensely fertile stuff and good for growing food so ‘farming folks’ rush after it.
But, when newly created and most fertile, is still barely above sea level.
Sooo, so if a cyclone happens nearby and launches a tidal surge – lots of folks ‘get wet’ and we hear about climate change
Oh Noe, does that mean that Soil Erosion = the observed climate change?
“downward sinking force under continents”
I’m no geologist, but I think the continents are floating on the basement rocks because they’re lighter- so I doubt there is a downward sinking force. Of course the highest parts of the continents are eroding, adding sediments to lower parts- and at least those lower areas, if those sediments are not washed out to sea, will exert downward pressure- and it could be enough over time to create or activate a fault. (wild guessing here- though I do love geology- just never took any courses- just bought all the textbooks)
DMac ==> You would be interested in the paper: Webin Shen et al. (2015) — “Evidences of the expanding Earth from space-geodetic data over solid land and sea level rise in recent two decades”.
Might be some support for you in there.
I haven’t read that one yet, but I did read within the last year where someone said the Earth’s core grows by about 1mm per year due to phase change of the iron. Of course an argument against my hypothesis is mentioned by Joseph Zorzin above. The continents are lighter, mostly silicate rocks, floating on a sea of mostly molten iron, so the hyraulic effect I mention is counteracted by a buoyancy effect.
I was aware of the crustal tidal motion. However, I never gave it much thought with respect to the differential GPS stations used to correct for subsidence and rebound in calculating actual sea level change. One more complication to deal with!
I believe that pumping out the North Sea in The Netherlands qualifies as “landification”.
Coming at the concept from a different direction, could the equivalent term be ‘de-oceanification’?
Quite a huge job- but trivial compared to decarbonizing our civilization.
Gee, I grew up in Rotterdam 6 meter below sea level
Many years ago, it used to be a shallow lake, but the Dutch put a dike around it, pumped out the water with wind mills, build Rotterdam starting about 1000 years ago.
The western 30% of the country was built that way, including the Zuiderzee after WW2
If you build a mile-long pier, after a few years you have a mile-wide sandy beach, another way the Dutch do landification.
About 8100 years ag, the UK was connected to Europe with a narrow land bridge, the North Sea and Channel did not exist.
Then there was a land slide off the Norwegian coast, which created a Tsunami, and Presto, the North Sea appeared and the Channel
Not exactly a ‘narrow land bridge’.
doggerland_530.jpg
It wasn’t a tsunami that created the North Sea, but 400 feet of sea level rise caused mainly by melting ice-age glaciers. Either storm surges or tsunamis have been the cause of smaller submergences, such as Holland – but that was only flooded a few feet deep.
I’ve always wondered if changes in high latitude solar insolation were really enough to trigger or terminate glacial periods, particularly given that it’s constantly changing and yet we currently have a pretty consistent 100-120 kyr cycle. I get the feeling that what initiates a new glacial period after an interglacial is when the land rebounds to a certain point that it favors glacial growth again, for instance if the Baltic gets cut off from the N. Atlantic, or the Hudson Bay, and so forth.
johnesm ==> An idea, at least. I am unaware of the conditions you posit have every happened — at least in the time period we call the last few Ice Ages.
more important is the land reclaimed from deserts due to increased CO2 and the greening of the planet – WUWT reports that the amount is more than the size of the entire USA which land can be used for farming to feed the world
William Howard ==> The greening of the Earth is an interesting topic, and not controversial (except some Climate Crazies deny it, even though it is visible and measured from satellite images.)
Whether from a northward lurch of the African plate or from a slight drop in the level of the world’s oceans, the Strait of Gibraltar somehow narrowed abruptly, slightly before six million years ago. This constriction prevented the flow of waters from the Atlantic from keeping pace with evaporation, so that the Mediterranean shrank far below its present level. The narrow waters of the Atlantic that crossed the threshold at Gibraltar must have cascaded to meet the declining surface of the Mediterranean by way of a waterfall more spectacular by far than any that can be seen on earth today. When the Mediterranean evaporated to its lowest level, Atlantic waters plummeted more than a mile and a half before striking its surface. The evidence for this wonder of the latest Miocene world came in part from studies that Soviet scientists undertook in preparing to build to build the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River. The seismic analyses, or tracking of artificial earthquakes, used to test the natural underpinnings for the proposed dam yielded startling results. The seismic waves revealed a chasm, larger than the Grand Canyon of Arizona, buried beneath the sediments of the modern Nile. The ancestral Nile had excavated the canyon as it sliced its way downward to meet the declining surface of the Mediterranean.
As the waters of Mediterranean shrank, they became so briny that salts crystallized from them and many forms of marine life died out. Nearby land areas for which the Mediterranean had previously supplied moisture and provided thermal stability became seasonably arid and cool. In short, ecosystems in and around the Mediterranean were disrupted.
Steven M. Stanley, Children of the Ice Age, Harmony Books, New York, 1996, pgs. 54-55.
General ==> Interesting geological history. Thanks.
“I show that the IPCC-consensus view is not supported by physical measurements of the actual levels of the sea surface where it hits the land. Sea levels are rising, but they are not accelerating, not rising faster or slower”
Does the IPCC claim sea rise is accelerating?
“Earth’s surface gained 115,000 km2 of water and 173,000 km2 of land over the past 30 years, including 20,135 km2 of water and 33,700 km2 of land in coastal areas.”
So, just like many middle age people, the Earth is getting rounder? Is it enough to change the diameter?
Joseph ==> That is a difficult question….IPCC-ites make the claim. Just checked AR6 — yes they make the claim.Summary for Policy Makes, A.1.7, page SPM-5.
I wrote that this is not true in “The Frozen Climate Views of the IPCC – an analysis of AR6” Chapter 5. The IPCC uses non-commensurable data sets to make the claim. Satellite records on the end of Tide Gauge records, but ignores the Tide Gauge records subsequently, even though they cleary show no acceleration — neither rising faster or slower.
Yes, they use progressively adjusted satellite data to do so.
Very nice.
Thank you, Bob.
I’m sorry, but we have been told sea level is raising, then we find tide gages are being affected via subsidence and satellite data being adjusted. Now we find using satellite imagery land area is increasing at substantial amounts. Who are we supposed to believe? The climate science or our lying eyes?
My conclusion is that sea level of late has not been rising but actually falling. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, either sea level is rising resulting in aggregate land area decrease or sea level is dropping resulting in aggregate land area increase.
dscott8186 ==> You might want to read my Sea Level: Rise and Fall series here at WUWT. Start with #1and work your way through.
Your conclusion may be far to simplified. Things are just not that simple at all.
We can measure Local Relative Sea Level (rise or fall) quite reliably with modern Tide Gauges with Continuously Operating GPS stations mounted to the same structure. [CGPS@TG(ss)] This solution tells us how much the land is moving, up and/or down, and how much the sea surface is moving up or down, and the combination of the two tells us reliably how much of the change is the sea surface rising. A lot of emphasis is being put on this by serious sea level groups.
The Tide Gauges tell a different story than the satellite calculations. Tide Gauges tell of a sea level slowly rising across the century, with little deviations, little wiggles, but generally a long steady linear rise — something less than 2 mm/yr — when corrected for GPS measured VLM. (Vertical Land Movement)
Aggregate Land Area is not much related to SLR at all. Rising or falling, at a rate by any measure in millimeters per year, makes very little change when compared to geological changes in land area (volcanoes, coral island aggregation, delta building, etc).
Overly simplistic? A net gain of 13,000 sq miles is a nuanced number?
Occam’s Razor applied, this visual data refutes the manufactured data of sea level rise. Sea levels on the whole are falling not rising. The massaging of satellite and tide gage data is now exposed as a fraud by the irrefutable evidence of our eyes.
If you trace it’s etymology, you’ll find that the word “landification” is closely related to the word
“land-o-goshen!”.
I have very little faith in the results of any study that claims an uncertainty (even before considering whether it is 1 or 2 sigma) that is greater than the nominal value. For one, it says that the actual value could be positive or negative, and the most-significant figure of the uncertainty is larger than the most-significant figure of the measurand, where the use of two digits implies that the uncertainty is nominally +/-0.005! Thus, there is a contradiction. What is the precision? As stated, it appears that the claimed accuracy of a nominal value of 0.4 [0.35 rounded up] is +/-0.5, while the implied measurement precision is +/-0.005 for both. It is not very informative or useful information. It is basically saying that the precision of measurements is about two orders of magnitude larger than the probable accuracy.
Clyde ==> Many many things wrong with that paper — and the methodology. They used model output as data they out into a model.
“ The consensus view, regardless of the contention regarding the rate of rise, that rising sea levels will simply continue to submerge land under the sea and cause land loss through eroding land edges is not factual and is not supported by physical evidence.”
There certainly are ‘eroding land edges’, below is an image of the most extreme case in europe.
5472.jpg
Phil ==> There are always local erosion events — which is why there must be sensible local ordinances against building a suburb on top of what is obviously a sand bluff (Very few stones at the bottom of that cliff). Extensive loss of land surface area is the topic at hand — not little local events caused by the normal interactions between the and and the sea. That kind of erosion is not caused by Sea Level Rise — it is caused by the physical dynamics of the sea and the land interface,and has been going on for the entire history of the Earth — in that case, by North Sea storms, which are not new nor bigger — they have always been notorious.
Although you don’t supply a time and place for that image, I find that is is purported, on the ‘net to be in both East Yorkshire and in Australia.
The tide gauge at Immingham, just south of Withernsea, shows sea level rising and falling across a 100 mm (4 inch) range for the last 45 years, which is in align with the understanding of 8 inches in 100 years. The record has an unfortunate recent break which makes current conditions unclear, but the long-term record shows no unusual or large change in sea levels along that coast (assuming you mean East Yorkshire and not Australia).