From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Demonstrably false information, serious science errors, and continuing misinformation.
Yes, we are talking about another Seattle Times ClimateLab article. ClimateLab is sponsored journalism, whereby advocacy groups pay for “journalism”, which coincidentally supports the group’s positions.
The story is about flooding in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, a community built on the floodplain of the Duwamish River. An area that has flooded regularly for millennia.
The Seattle Times makes the unfounded claim that human-caused global warming is a major driver of the flooding….suggesting that the major flood of December 17, 2022, demonstrates that this neighborhood is “on the front lines of climate change“.
The article states that South Park has to “brace for climate change” and by mid-century (2050) that the water level should rise by another foot.
As I will prove below, the Seattle Times claims are clearly contradicted by clear scientific evidence.
Go back to the 1890s, and the South Park area was a mud flat the frequently flooded (see map from 1894 below.
As one would expect of the flood plain of the Duwammish, this area has flooded many times during the past 130 years– hardly requiring global warming, which only became significant in the 1970s and 1980s.
The recent Times article highlighted the major South Park flood of December 27, 2022. This event brought flooding to the South Park area as water levels rose to 15 feet MLLW, the mean lower low water level, which represents the average of the lowest low water for each day, calculated over a 19-year period.
The water was very high because of several factors occurring simultaneously: a very large astronomical King Tide associated with the moon and sun being aligned during a favorable time of the year, very low and unusual atmospherc pressure (which caused water levels to rise), and heavy prior rain, that revved up the Dumaamish River.
None of these were associated with global warming.
The Seattle Times seems to think that the key element of the local sea level rise is a warming world.
Don’t get me wrong. Global warming HAS caused water levels to rise very slowly, but so slowly that its effects are essentially in the noise level for big events like the flood in question..
Let me prove this to you. Below is the sea level trend at Seattle starting in 1900. Note that sea level has been going up for a long time— including earlier periods (before 1970) when human-caused warming would be very small.
On average, Seattle’s sea level has risen about 2.09 mm (.08 inches) per year. So over the past fifty years, a period where rising CO2 levels and associated warming became significant, the sea level in Seattle rose about 4 inches.
So perhaps 4 inches of the 15 feet of the extreme water level during that 2022 flood MIGHT be explained by human-caused global warming.
That is TWO PERCENT. I repeat 2%. So why in the world is the Seattle Times ClimateLab pointing its finger at global warming? Such claims are contrary to data.
I think you know why.
But it is worse than that. Considering the sea level was rising before human CO2 emissions were significant, how do we know that some of the recent rise was not natural? In fact, that seems more likely than not.
And to add to the climate change hype, the Seattle Times suggests that Seattle’s sea level will rise another foot by 2050….25 years from now. This is silly.
Since there appears to be no acceleration of the sea level rise in Seattle during he past decades, let’s extrapolate the historical rate for 25 years. You get 2 inches. Still very small.
Go crazy, double that amount. Still very small compared to astronomical and meteorological factors that are independent of global warming.
It’s just too boring.
They have to have something to talk about. At least it’s not Palos Verde.
Being innumerate is apparently a job requirement for journalists?
Not all of us.
The 30 year rate of sea level rise for Seattle has been as high as 3.4 mm/yr in 1973 and
as low as 0.5 mm/yr in 2009 and -0.1 mm/yr in 1930. Currently the rate is 2.5 mm/yr
Source: PSMSL
A foot of sea level rise by 2050 comes to a rate of over 12mm/yr starting right now.
One has to wonder when this miraculous increase in sea level rise for Seattle is going
to begin to happen.
The world ice loss is linear or if anything is slowing down at Antarctica
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/?intent=121
Where does any acceleration come from under that situation?
For practical purposes, there isn’t any acceleration. However, there’s this:
Looks like Greek to me.
That is a 100 year data we are talking about 25 years (2025 to 2050).
Even if I believed the data (and I don’t because it doesn’t adjust for land movement in the period) you would need to plug the 25 years into the quadratic to get an actual rise based on the funky data.
You have the ice loss as measured from the grace mission period so if you want to claim acceleration you need to find where this water is going to come from.
“One has to wonder when this miraculous increase in sea level rise for Seattle is going
to begin to happen.”
Isn’t it always “Tomorrow” unless we do (fill in the blank) “Now”?
In the spring of 1950, Winnipeg, Canada, was affected by its worst flood in its history. It displaced thousands and caused considerable structural damage. Did the residents of the city abandon the entire area and relocate to higher ground? Did they attribute it to climate change brought on by excessive carbon emissions? Not in the least. Since they were aware that the city is built on a flood plain that caused major inundations at least as far back as 1846, urban planners started work on a series of dams, diversion channels, dredging operations, and spillways designed to protect against future events of this type. And there were other such events, notably in 1997, when these new structures and defenses left the city and most of the surrounding area protected from most of the potential damage that would have occurred without them. Millions had to be spent over the years, but the devastation that it forestalled would have run into the billions had precautions for the future not been taken. Winnipeg’s urban area 1950 population was under 300,000; today it’s approaching 850,000 largely because no one panicked here the way the climate alarmists want us to do on a global scale these days. People worldwide rise to such challenges; they don’t abandon fossil fuels and return to primitive lifestyles that will supposedly save the planet, the environment and everything in between. Chances are excellent that Seattle’s residents will also do what it takes to protect their area in the same way. There won’t by any mass exodus to slopes of Mt. Rainier or the the Rockies.
Yes, the Red River floods occasionally.
A settlement in the US is cut off from emergency services.
So Canadian fire and police departments cover it.
After years of that Hands Across Border goodness, the US Sheriff now deputizes Canadian responders.
We used to go to Seattle every year, I loved it. Have had no desire to go there for more than three decades, it is real mess. I am not at all surprised by the Times article.
Certainly Seattle has a policing problem, current mayor promised to do much better but improvement has been slow.
In part because recruiting has been slow. (Several years ago distant suburbs like Kent were attracting Seattle officers with higher pay.)
Many of these unsubstantiated climate caterwauling articles are curated and distributed by an activist group called Covering Climate Now
https://coveringclimatenow.org/
No honest revelationary journalism, just rank bullshit about the imaginary “climate crisis”
Should be Propagandizing Climate Now.
I believe you are wrong Mr. Mass. PSMSL shows Seattle area tide gauges and GPS elevation gauges. The tide gauge shows steady sea level rise of about 2 mm/yr for the past 125 years. The GPS elevation gauge shows that at least in recent decades, that about half of that increase is due to sinking land on which the GPS gauge is mounted. If by “climate change” you mean the influence of increasing carbon dioxide gas in the earth’s atmosphere since ~1970, there has been no change in the rate of sea level rise since then and for the previous 75 years. Therefore whatever may be the consequences of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide or “climate change” if you prefer, sea level rise in Seattle is not among them. Refer to the tide and GPS gauge for The Battery in NYC. The data for those gauges show the same information; unchanged since before Abe Lincoln was President and there the gauges are mounted on bedrock.
But, but, but CO2 is HEAVY and adding it to the atmosphere will compress the ground.
/sarc major
The wide region has tectonic plates, many not huge size.
In some locations land has risen.
Between New Westminster BC and NW corner of Olympic Peninsula tide gage change is opposite.
The Pacific North West is a known unstable geological area, being adjacent to the colliding plate techtonics influences of the 3 active plates in the region.
Relative sea level movements could just be effects of these activities.
The North American plate is moving to the west-southwest at about 2.3 cm (~1 inch) per year driven by the spreading center that created the Atlantic Ocean, the Mid Atlantic Ridge.
This may seem like small and slow motion but over geologic time scales these movements add up to hundreds and thousands of kilometers, and can reform parts of the surface of Earth.
The small Juan De Fuca Plate, moving east-northeast at 4 cm (~1.6 inches) per year, was once part of a much larger oceanic plate called the Farallon Plate.
Yes.
While earthquakes are a risk.
The wide region around Seattle had several in the past few decades, including early 90s.
One at the far south end of Puget Sound severely damaged the dome of the state capitol building.
One cracked the runway of Boeing Field.
Some did major damage to old brick buildings in downtown Seattle Pioneer Square area and Auburn to the south.
I was in Kirkland WA when one occurred in the foothills to the east, I knew it was an earthquake not a truck bouncing on the nearby road because the chandelier was swaying. (Epicenter in the Woodinville-Carnation area, I don’t know if buildings were damaged – probably are old buildings in Carnation.)
IIRC those quakes were about M5.4.
OTOH, the Victoria BC area including nearby San Juan Islands is full of fault lines but hasn’t had significant earthquakes to relieve stress.
Demonstrably false information, serious science errors, and continuing misinformation.
By that definition, it is disinformation, not misinformation. It is purposeful propaganda.
+10
As is the vast majority of so-called “climate science.” For the most part activism masquerading as “science.”
I always check this:
https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?plot=50yr&id=9447130
As You all can see the rise is not due to an increase in CO2
Max rise occurs 1960!
During the Global Cooling Crisis. How ironic!
Just go to Itanos in eastern Crete where the ancient port is about 12 metres below sea level.
12 metres of sea rise in about 4,000 years averaging 3mm a year.
Magic.
No carbon dioxide emissions needed.
Citing the peer-reviewed study Land subsidence risk to infrastructure in US metropolises, (L. Ohenhen, et. al., May 08, 2025, https://www.nature.com/articles/s44284-025-00240-y ), author Christine Clarridge in her article “Seattle is sinking citywide, new study shows”, May 9, 2025, https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2025/05/09/seattle-sinking-land-subsidence-study , states:
“— Seattle’s average subsidence rate exceeds 2 millimeters per year, joining cities like New York and Chicago in the moderate-risk tier.
“— The new research finds that nearly 100% of Seattle’s land area is sinking at measurable rates, with some zones sinking faster than others.
“— In Seattle’s case, tectonic activity and sediment compaction appear to be the dominant drivers — not groundwater pumping, which is a primary culprit elsewhere, per the study.”
Unfortunately, the above article makes no reference to how land subsidence affects relative sea-level rise. The article has this statement immediately above the graph indicating Relative Sea-Level Trend in the Seattle, WA area:
“On average, Seattle’s sea level has risen about 2.09 mm (.08 inches) per year.”
I guess I should point out that a relative sea-level rise of 2.09 mm/year is entirely consistent with a land subsidence rate of “exceeds 2 millimeters per year”.
The larger question is that, given satellite precision measurements over the last 20 or so year have indicated an absolute SLR value of 2-3 mm/year, why hasn’t the rise rate above 2 mm/year been indicated by the tide gages in the Seattle area . . . an issue of measurement accuracy?
Nevertheless, referring to the above article’s “bottom line”: yes, land subsidence is completely independent of current global warming.
The Seattle Times is avowedly climate alarmist, takes money from alarmists.
I take the article’s news as that with high tides – as they are these days because of planetary motions – the South Park neighbourhood does not have enough pumps to keep it dry. Especially without good dikes.
Some streets in the Ladner area of Delta BC flooded around 1980 because pumps could not keep up, some basements flooded whereas somewhat newer homes stayed dry as they were a few feet higher. (It’s in the Fraser River delta, as is Richmond BC which depends on dikes and pumps, which have been upgraded in both areas plus more backup power provided.)
Much of South Park in Seattle is old.
(It’s across the river from Boeing Field which is fill so cracked in one earthquake, and from old Boeing plants.)