An recent CBS News article claims that climate change induced sea level rise could result in large parts of New York City being underwater by the year 2100. This is false. The best and most relevant data measuring sea level rise in the New York Battery Park area shows a slow but steady rate of rise since 1850 that would fall very far short of submerging any locations in New York City by 2100.
In the article, CBS News cites the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) saying:
“NOAA predicts sea levels in Battery Park City and on the East Side of Manhattan will rise between 2.5 feet and 6.5 feet by the year 2100.”
CBS interviewed a resident nearby who said:
“That’s crazy to even picture,” said Nef Garcia, who lives in Battery Park City.
He’s right, it is crazy and here is why.
NOAA’s prediction is heavily predicated on computer climate models that assume a huge acceleration in sea level rate of rise over the next 75 years. In particular, NOAA’s Sea Level Rise Viewer, upon which the prediction is based, relies on estimates and models used in 2007. These estimates are woefully outdated, and with the new generation of models now in use, the old estimates used by CBS don’t accurately represent the future the current best projections. The predictions CBS cites are shown in Figure 1.
Since 2007, research has shown that computer climate models consistently run too hot. The unfortunate part of these “too hot models” is that they have been in use for years, referenced by other scientific papers, and have been the basis for claiming future doom scenarios in thousands of media stories just like this one.
So, there’s a built-in bias in these models, and if you use their outputs to predict things like sea level rise, you’ll end up with exaggerations rather than reality. This is a dramatic case of Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Speaking of reality, actual data exists on sea level rise from the Battery Park area of New York City, cited in the story. NOAA has plotted the data here, seen in Figure 2 below:
Note the text provided by NOAA at the bottom of the graph:
The relative sea level trend is 2.92 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.09 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1856 to 2023 which is equivalent to a change of 0.96 feet in 100 years.
Actual data says 0.96 feet (less than a full foot) in 100 years, and of course, it will be even less that for the 75 years until 2100. Despite the hard data, another division of NOAA, who produced the sea level viewer that CBS News touted, says “between 2.5 feet and 6.5 feet by the year 2100.” Clearly, somebody is wrong, they both can’t be right. Sound science practice dictates that when data and theory conflict, you question the theory, not the data, which in this case would mean trusting actual data, rather than computer model projections.
Also notable are the past failed predictions of NYC being inundated by rising seas by some prominent people, such as James Hansen, Ph.D. of NASA, often referred to as the father of global warming, who had an office just a few blocks away from the Battery Park tide gauge. In a 2001 interview with Salon.com, he said this:
While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.” (emphasis, authors)
When WUWT reported the story in 2011, discussing Hansen’s falsified prediction, it made some waves, and lo and behold, the original reporter comes to the Hansen’s rescue, by moving the goalposts out another 20 years saying he had misquoted Hansen, and it was actually 40 years not 20 years.
So, by that Hansen claim, the West Side Highway will be under water in 2028. Here is a 2023 Google Earth Street View of the West Side Highway, about a mile North of Battery Park. It seems the ocean has a huge way to go before the highway is flooded in 5 years, seen in Figure 3 below:
When the topic is climate change, even the “father of global warming” has repeatedly been proven wrong.
The bottom line: hyperbolic predictions on New York City and sea level have been around for decades, and not one of them has come true, nor is there evidence that they will come true within any realistic time frame. If CBS News had bothered to fact check, they would have discovered this. Instead, they chose to write a scare story citing outdated, flawed computer models predictions of future doom, ignoring real world data to the contrary, in the process.
Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
When you take into account that NYC is sinking at up to 4mm per year it makes you wonder if sea levels are really rising at all.
Manhattan? I am real skeptical about that. That island is mostly a granite outcropping.
New York City is located about 150 miles south of the ice wall at Albany that formed at the southern edge of the last glaciation. Consequently, NYC was actually raised by that glaciation (like sitting in the middle of a mattress and the edges go up), and with the melting of that glacier, isostatic rebound has caused areas north of the edge to get higher in elevation while areas south of the edge have gotten lower.
There’s also the effects of land use, such as land fill that affect local areas of NYC.
NASA completed a study in 2023 that found that various points in the NYC area are both raising and lowering at the same time.
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3285/nasa-led-study-pinpoints-areas-of-new-york-city-sinking-rising/
Like so much of what goes on in the world, generalizations are usually wrong because they don’t take into effect all of the processes that actually effect the surface of the Earth and its climate on local as well as regional bases.
The last glaciers extended down into what is now Central Park. Many rock out crops show scratches caused by them.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/10632426@N05/6312025437
Another.
Isn’t there a glacial erratic in one the parks? In New Jersey they covered a good portion of the North
There are moraine parks in several states. This in southern part.
https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/parks/kms
There is one Pennsylvania too.
Mr. Sobchak, you are correct that the Battery Park sea level gauge is fixed to granite. However, there is a GPS elevation gauge at the Battery Park location. It has been operating only since 2011 but it shows a declining land elevation averaging 1.84 millimeters per year. Granite rock often appears on the surface of the earth because it is lighter than the volcanic rocks that underlie it at great depths. It is essentially floating on what underlies and is therefore not fixed in elevation but is subject to movement as the underlayment moves as is all of the earth’s surface. At present, this underlayment and the granite above is moving down at 1.84 mm/yr. All one can say about this circumstance is that the gauges are not sinking because of sediment compaction, groundwater pumping or some other phenomena. See PSMSL.org for details and look under “Other Information” for the GPS data.
Denis, excellent post!
According to the article:
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3285/nasa-led-study-pinpoints-areas-of-new-york-city-sinking-rising/
(the same one as Duane linked above)
using a remote sensing technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) from orbiting satellites, new York City is subsiding at an average rate of about 1.6 mm/year, consistent with your stated value of 1.84 mm/year for Battery Park.
See the attached map extracted from the above-referenced website.
Sorry Denis, but I have to disagree.
When I was mixing with geologists, I do not recall any discussion ever about glacial rebound of granites. It was simply not known if all granites sit on soft rock or hard rocks, so the very question of rebound might be academic. The evidemce for rebound comes from satellite measurements that have large uncertainty and are questioned when used to estimate sea level changes – why not for rock changes?
Our contact with deepest rocks is from the Russian Kola super-deep drill hole down to 12.6 km. Temperature was oven-like at 180 degrees C. Raises questions of whether all continental rocks are resting on this malleabble bed (lkely) so that past glaciations might resemble your footsteps over a water bed. The global cooling rate is probably slow enough to assume that conditions for rebound now are similar to those say 100,000 years ago.
Much remains to be discovered about how granites form. My former chief, John Elliston AO, wrote
https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-origin-of-rocks-and-mineral-deposit-john-elliston/book/9781925501360.html
This is the definitive text, maybe the only one, one the role of colloids in rock formation. Most geologists never study it, yet it may be vitally important. For example, a colloid formation process would “freeze” the granite at the base of the colloidal action, whose controls from temperature, pressure, hydration etc are very poorly understood, rather than depths related to molten magmas, the preferred manner. Nobody knows what the bottom of a granite looks like, nor if there are restrictions on its depth.
Geoff S
and are questioned when used to estimate sea level changes – why not for rock changes?
Different physics of matter. Liquid versus solid.
The ocean is liquid. It is affected by lunar tides, waves, and wind (not wave effects).
Getting an accurate real time measurement is difficult with ocean compared to land/granite.
Measurement errors would be basically the same for both, but it is more difficult to hit a moving target.
Land mass elevation relative to a mathematical reference geoid is affected by:
— Moon-induced tides, same as oceans but to a smaller amplitude
— Surface subsidence or uplift, same as the seafloor of the oceans, but dry land is more affected by human withdrawal of water from underground aquifers or petroleum from underground reservoirs
— Horizontal movement of tectonic plates (i.e., both mountain-building and subduction), which is distinct from isostatic rebound
Land elevation above sea-level is therefore also moving target.
Well, if [entirely bogus] sea level rise alarm is your thing, then… howabout the inevitable ‘new study‘.
“”Scientists identify new Antarctic ice sheet ‘tipping point,’ warning future sea level rise may be underestimated
The Antarctic ice sheet is melting in a new, worrying way that scientific models used to project future sea level rise have not taken into account, suggesting current projections could be significantly underestimating the problem, according to a new study.
…
what surprised Bradley about this study, which used climate modeling to understand…””
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/25/climate/antarctic-ice-sheet-tipping-point-sea-level-rise-climate-intl/index.html
How good is their modelling and/or the study?
“”The study does not give time frames for when the tipping point might be reached, nor does it give figures for how much sea level rise can be expected. But the region is hugely significant”
I wonder how much that thunderbolt out of the blue cost?
The linked article has a reference to the obligatory discussion of the Thwaites Glacier aka Doomsday Glacier which just happens to have the highest rate of melting in Antarctica
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz5845
and sits on top of the warmest region from geothermal activity
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GC009428
denny,
If that is correct about the highest rate of melting, surely that is of interest only if the rate of melting has changed over time. If the bedrock has been at constant temperature, usually an expectation unless there are other signs of volcanism, then the melting is not novel, but simply natural variation.
Geoff S
Other parts of Antarctica, as reported, are gaining ice. The apparent net is close to zero.
Gotta love it when Net Zero is about something real. ;-))
scientific models! 🙂
How can the sea rise off New York and not off Malta? The Roman baths hewn from rock along the shore fill to the correct level today, thousands of years later.
It’s time that the MSM are taken to task legally for distributing fearmongering lies.
Actually, apparent sea level rates of change as read and tracked on tidal gages and even satellite readings can in fact vary around the planet, regardless of any general planet-wide trends up or down. Factors that affect local measured sea level include ocean currents (water always flows down hill due to gravity, so an ocean current also flows downhill … meaning that the water surface elevation has to be higher upstream than the water surface downstream), and other factors (below). This is what happens with tides, but also on a much larger and longer term scale, is what happens with “permanent” ocean currents.
Factors affecting local measurements of course also include surficial subsidence (due to human induced causes like groundwater or oil “mining”, and settlements in fill due to compaction, and also settlements in native soils due to consolidation within underlying clay layers) … as well as natural crustal “isostatic rebound” that raises some areas that previously were under thick glaciers, and lowers adjacent areas that were outside the bounds of the glacier.
The Pacific Warm Pool gains about 22 inches on the eastern Pacific by the time of every EL Nino, courtesy of the trade winds and the rotation of the globe.
Actually, no. Ocean currents are caused primarily by winds.
Winds for the most part are caused by the sun. The sun heats the water and the land, which in turn warms the air above it, which starts rising. The rising air creates a low pressure region which in turn pulls in air from places where the sun isn’t as strong. In a nutshell, this is how wind is created.
If currents were being caused by water being piled up, what caused the water to pile up?
So, the Gulf Stream is primarily due to wind?
Fascinating.
The Romans had better engineers than NYC?
OH, NYC used to employee good engineers? Well, maybe it was the building contractors.
The Romans built to last forever, essentially. Much of what they built would still be standing if not destroyed by invaders.
You are right. Watching a series on Prime about the Roman roads built in Britain. The first was Waitling (sp). Many buildings, walls, and the roads themselves.
“…the old estimates used by CBS don’t accurately represent the future the current best projections” but they do accurately produce the fear required to help keep the globull warming gravy train on its track, the whole point of the story.
The media propagates garbage-in, garbage-out, garbage-believed by the gullible consumers of their trash reporting.
The problem isn’t CBS. The lie is coming from NOAA. For every CBS story there are dozens, scores of local “news” scare stories about SLR and thousands of school “lessons” based on the NOAA “projections.” And the other day the top man himself, the current and very endangered incumbent president, ran to the Big Lie and gave an unhinged climate catastrophe message. I’m not happy about the media, but it is just accurately quoting the inaccurate federal “data” from the “public servants.”
So … the media’s job is to be simpleton mouthpieces of government agencies? The media’s job is to never question their sources? The media’s job is to be an extension of government … never challenging government authority?
Wow. I grew up with a totally different understanding of how the media is supposed to operate as a check on power … not a lapdog of power.
Freedom of the press was a new and fairly short lived ideal. While People like Franklin and his circle were working hard to report what was really going on, it was still illegal to print anything not provided and approved by the Crown.
What the mainstream media personnel do is the equivalent of chimps throwing poop.
I think you have a utopian view of media. Here are some media folks that might change your understanding:
William Randolph Heart, Joseph Pulitzer, William Hyde, Cyrus McCormick
If I had the time and patience I could add a thousand names to that list.
How about that. He was a man of many talents.
The key word is “supposed”
True, but the MSM should have enough intelligence to see what the skeptics have to say- then they could offer a more honest story.
“James Hansen, Ph.D. of NASA, often referred to as the father of global warming, who had an office just a few blocks away from the Battery Park tide gauge.”
Hansen’s office was at 112 St. and Broadway, above Tom’s Restaurant of Seinfeld fame. We used to live 5 blocks south of that location. Our daughter lives 10 blocks north. You can walk straight down Broadway to Battery Park from 112 st. It is 7.5 miles. not a few blocks. the area around Hansen’s office is called Morningside Heights. It is a rocky ridge way above the water of the Hudson River.
WWUT has a picture of the building. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
Do not blame it on CO2
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?plot=50yr&id=8518750
The West Side Highway that Hansen was talking about no longer exists, it has been demolished and rebuilt.
Here’s a photo of the West Side Highway this January at high tide:
Usually happens every couple of years.
From the whitecaps it looks like the wind is pushing the ocean over the highway.
Yes, technically it’s the Hudson estuary.
A “photoshopped” photo if I ever saw one!
Just notice the different angles of shadows between the panels on the vertical portable “fences” and that of the lamppost in the foreground.
In other words, garbage.
You appear to be confusing reflections off the water and shadows, not the same thing.
And you appear to be unable to distinguish a sun-vector shadow from an ambient light reflection. Indeed, they are not the same thing.
Hint 1: reflections are always directly along the line of sight between the observer and the object being reflected.
Hint 2: rough water, as that in the photo being discussed, is a very poor reflector.
Hint 3: the panels (posters?) attached to the moveable fences are not casting any shadows in the direction of the shadow cast by the lamppost.
“Hint 1: reflections are always directly along the line of sight between the observer and the object being reflected.”
Exactly my point.
“Hint 2: rough water, as that in the photo being discussed, is a very poor reflector.
Hint 3: the panels (posters?) attached to the moveable fences are not casting any shadows in the direction of the shadow cast by the lamppost.”
Precisely given that it’s a reflective surface what you see is the reflection in the direction of the viewer not the shadow. Take a mirror outside and try it out.
High tide happens more than just “every couple of years.”
1) What assurance do viewers of your photo have that the choppy water level is the same as the calmer water level? Scale vehicle builders use the photograpy trick of forced perspective to convince the eye into thinking a raised platform is the same level as the area behind it.
2) Why show us a photo from January at high tide when one from yesterday or last week would suffice to prove that Hansen’s sea level rise predictions are actually happening?
“High tide happens more than just “every couple of years.””
No the flooding happens with that frequency. A typical high tide is about 6ft above the average minimum, minor flooding occurs at 7ft and moderate at 8ft. Forecast today is 6.20 ft a month ago it was 6.50 at the Battery. Hansen was referring to flooding during a storm.
?width=512&height=340&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
Plenty of other photos around:
Rebuilt not that long ago- and they didn’t think that maybe- just maybe they should build higher?
And if it already floods regularly imagine what it will be like 40 years after CO2 doubles like what Hansen actually predicted in Bob Reiss’ book.
Yes unfortunately Anthony latched on to Reiss’s misremembered quote and still won’t let go of it:
“When WUWT reported the story in 2011, discussing Hansen’s falsified prediction, it made some waves, and lo and behold, the original reporter comes to the Hansen’s rescue, by moving the goalposts out another 20 years saying he had misquoted Hansen, and it was actually 40 years not 20 years.”
Fortunately Reiss had actually reported the conversation in his book 10 years before so we know what was actually said: “When I interviewed James Hansen I asked him to speculate on what the view outside his office window could look like in 40 years with doubled CO2.”
These exaggerated predictions seem to have led NYC to spend a bunch of money on prevention; from Dec, 2021:
“… workers have moved quickly to get rid of more than 70 species of mature trees at the popular 46-acre park on the Lower East Side, including 419 oaks, 284 London planes, 89 honeylocusts and 81 cherry trees — along with eventually demolishing a running track, ballfields, lawns, picnic areas, an amphitheater and a composting center.”
I think there was a WUWT post, but here is a story:
https://www.eenews.net/articles/in-n-y-battling-climate-change-means-killing-1000-trees/
Not just predictions but the actual flooding, notably during Sandy. The track etc have been done.
From Hansen: “there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds.”
I’ve never understood this. Was he expecting frequent hurricanes? What then?
Here is an image for you: Imagine bringing truck loads of tape and hundreds of suspended scaffolds to tape all the windows in NYC. Push this idea. I’ve just bought stock in masking tape companies. 🙂
“Could”, “might”, “may”, “possibly”, “theoretically”, “there’s a chance”, “predictions that”, etc., etc.
The MSM knows all the qualifier words that give them plausible deniability if things turn out to exactly the opposite of their alarmist articles that serve the purpose of selling their BS.
and, scientific models! (from a quote by Strativarius- see above)
Some parts of NYC is fill put into marsh and swamp. Those were the areas worst hit with that hurricane some years ago. Nature trying to reclaim its own?
Somewhere I read that early colonists in New England avoided building on the coast- partly to be safe from storms. Now everyone wants to build and live on the coast forgetting how smart those pioneers were.
City Limits …
<b>By Next Century, Hundreds of Critical NYC Buildings Risk Frequent Flooding: Study</b>
https://citylimits.org/2024/07/03/by-next-century-hundreds-of-critical-nyc-buildings-risk-frequent-flooding-study/
From that link:
“These projections aren’t even based on a worst case scenario. They assume a medium rate of climate-driven sea level rise, based on the estimate that the oceans will rise at a global average of 3.2 feet by 2100.”
While the estimate in this post is 0.96 ft in 100 years; or 2124. The smart money is on which?
NOAA is in need of complete restructuring. CBS is a joke I can’t understand why anyone would believe them. It should be a requirement if an outfit like CBS used outdated or inaccurate info and claims NOAA as the source NOAA must require CBS to correct and clarify their reporting to match the truth. I have damn little respect for either outfit.
The prediction Hansen made was for 40 years after CO2 had doubled. We haven’t reached 560 ppm of CO2 nevermind 40 years afterward so it is a little early to be judging this prediction.
https://youtu.be/WTRlSGKddJE?si=XtgqPb5JyryyeWbI&t=1137
https://www.amazon.com/Coming-Storm-Extreme-Weather-Terrifying/dp/0786866659
https://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110126_SingingInTheRain.pdf
Computer models do not produce data. The produce quantification of the theory underlying the model.
The current models do not include adequate adjustments for several likely negative feedbacks as the climate begins to warm, if at all, from CO2 (saturation of CO2 absorption, thunderstorms as heat engines, increasing and changing nature of cloud cover albedo effects, etc).
With such poor theoretical science, it’s no wonder the models prove wrong and then wrong again, decade after decade, ruining the political goals of the climate alarmists.