http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/10/08/tidal-floods-sea-level-rise/16873241/
USA Today touts green group Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): ‘Scientists warn sea levels could swamp coasts’ – “Around the world, sea level is rising in response to global warming,” Fitzpatrick said. “As the oceans heat up, the water expands, and as glaciers and polar ice sheets melt, they add water to the oceans.”
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Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels rebuts USA Today & UCS: “Given that the global sea level rise since 1970 is a grand total of three inches, that means that subsidence (sinking land) is responsible for the vast majority of the SLR at both Atlantic City (63%) and Norfolk (67%). Without any warming at all, Atlantic City would have eight inches of total rise a mere 27 years from now, and Norfolk would reach nine inches 22.5 years from now. Maybe UCS ought to get one of those ‘Stop Continental Drift’ bumper stickers!”
Related Links:
New study finds sea levels rising only 7 in. per century – with no acceleration
9 Responses
In 1962 there was a super high tide backed by strong winds that washed my family’s beachfront cottage into the ocean. This was Virginia Beach near Norfolk where the extra high tide happened. There was a similar high tide in the 20s. My dad said he remembered waking up and his shoes were floating next to him. So extra high tides have been going on probably for ever.
The UCC, that’s the UNION OF CONCERNED CITIZENS to the UCS, is concerned about the UCS extorting tax dollars through the strong arm of their Daddy Warbuc…er, the Federal GovMINT as a jobs program for graduating climatologists with no real work skills.
Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice mass at an exponential rate, with a doubling time of 5 or 6 years. That implies 1 metre of global sea level rise by mid-century, if it continues.
Where did you come up with those numbers? Last I saw, Antarctica ice was the highest it has been in the satellite era. Exponential loss of Antarctica ice is just not happening. You can try and ignore reality with your preconceived ideas, but it will still be what it is. A=A, Tiger=Tiger, cooling world=cooling world. At what point will you begin to think for yourself?
Have a look at http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/Tech_rpt_53.pdf page 35:
“Figure 18. Monthly MSL data for San Francisco after removal of the average seasonal cycle and removal of an apparent datum shift of 0.037 m on September 1897. The total trend is 1.73 +/- 0.13 mm/yr. The time of the April 1906 earthquake is shown by the solid vertical line.”
Alameda, across the bay, is even less, at 0.82 mm/yr. In both cases, a straight line fits the data. For San Francisco, it’s data from 1855-2006, the longest record available. No acceleration from pre-20th century. Slow, steady, linear change.
What’s so special about San Francisco?
It has the longest measurement history. Since it predates any significant man-made CO2, you would expect to see a bend up n he data if it was AGW causing the sea level rise. It’s not, it’s a straight line.
You do know that local tectonic movements can affect local sea level, yes? We’re talking about changes in global sea level, which requires global measurements.
According to several studies, the rate of global sea level rise from 1901 to 2010 is 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm/yr. The rate from 1993 to 2010 is 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm/yr, so there has been statistically significant acceleration since measurements began.
As IPCC AR5 says:
“There is high confidence that this change is real and not an artefact of the different sampling or change in instrumentation, as the trends estimated over the same period from tide gauges and altimetry are consistent.”
Chapter 3, p. 288.
#1. Antarctic ice is growing. #2 Greenland was named “Greenland” for a reason. Way back when it was discovered it was green and inhabitable very far north along it’s seashore.