Rising Sea Levels: How do the Danes Fare?

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

If there has been a sea level rise in the Netherlands then there has been a corroborating rise in Hawaii. Since I have lived in Hawaii for seventeen years, the researchers in the Department of Oceanography at University of Hawai'i at Manoa should have recorded a rise in sea level in 2003. The sea levels in the Pacific have been fluctuating +/- a few inches very consistently every summer and winter.

The findings that they discover are shared with all the leaders of the Pacific Islands in the North Pacific and South Pacific and of course, the U.S. Mainland and the Asian Countries.

Cheerio,

CD

[Ouled Nails]

No, not so evenly as you assume, CD, not even in your immediate area, because of subsidence: some land masses sink at a faster pace than others. With respect to what happens to the melting ice once in the oceans, gravitational forces also exert a differential impact around the globe. Finally, thermal expansion, as currrently documented by a satellite, varies a lot from one global area to another.

You are visibly not willing to address the most important reason why scientists now project a more rapid increase in sea levels than previously projected (2007): Where does all the ice sheet melting goes, currently and for the next three generations?

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

You have brought up a very good point which I did not - kudos to you. Now then, there is also the variable of land mass that is rising because of upward pressure. Yes, there has been a rising of the Islands too. Even Sweden has been experiencing a rising of land mass.

Of course, I am not a geologist but I can see how land masses rise and sink. We see the subduction zones and how the various *plates* bump into each other. So then, rising and sinking land-masses can be *relational* to rising and sinking sea-levels.

But that then begs another question: Because of pressures inside the Earth there can be rising and sinking of land masses, then there can be the problem of countries losing physical land mass, not just because the relative sea-level rising but the land itself sinks like a Souffle, thus causing a migration of people farther inland to higher ground - Hmmm, it does get interesting. Of course, we can do nothing about geologically sinking land mass on a vast scale.

The implications do put a piquant twist to our lives on Earth, eh?

[Ouled Nails]

There is unquestionably a tendency to over-dramatize climate change (a bit like weather forecasters over-dramatizing forthcoming storms). And human beings aren't the best at observing long-term trends either! We just tend to adapt incrementally and move on with our lives.

Still, if people worldwide kept track of trends, such as increased bushfires and forest fires, with the same interest and attention as they keep track of stock markets, we could be working on strategies and research projects and be credited for such foresight by future generations.

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

I really appreciate the exchange we can have on the subject. I just found some interesting data about global temperatures:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/0...e-last-decade/


http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/1...icant-warming/

The most respected Atmospheric Physicist alive is Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT. He has published much that all together refutes the alarmism that plagues the current debate. The President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus disputes *warming hysteria* in Europe. His concern is that the EU-crats are using the issue to forcibly control the public.

An interesting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgyEvT_4Kcc

Cheerio,

CD

Ps: Other very significant sources of emissions that have immediate effects on environment are Volcanoes and volcanic vents both underwater and above-ground. Then of course there is the increase in the size and temperature of the Sun because of the Helium Ash deposited on the Sun's core, which is a by-product of Hydrogen-Burning. A hotter Sun will heat up the Earth, no questions asked. Maybe future generations might need to colonize Mars in order to escape the Earth being baked to a crisp. You and I will be long-gone before that happens.

[Krummhorn]

Interesting thread ...

Not a geologist either, but maybe an answer to the non rising of the shorelines of Hawaii could be that the ice sheets as a solid take up a certain displacement on/in the water - as the ice solid melts, it is only replacing the physical displacement of a solid form into a liquid form.

An analogy to the above: If one fills a tall glass with ice, then fills to the top with water, leaves it on the counter until the ice melts, the glass does not overflow or spill out onto the counter. I think the same thing happens with the ice sheets. Maybe?

[Ouled Nails]

Krummhorn,
It has risen well above secular averages during the last fifteen years (and so have forest fires, btw). But it has risen unevenly for reasons mentioned above. The EPA, which is hardly a radical bureaucratic institution, has a website on this particular topic which identifies the numerous variables involved in tracking the relevant data. NOTE that it's narrative is partly based on the conservative projections of the IPCC in 2007, which that panel has just revised upward in the article I referred to above:

Globally:

• Indonesia, Thailand, and Bangladesh are experiencing above-average sea level rise.
• Northwestern Australia is experiencing below-average sea level rise, a trend that is evident in much of the ocean between western Australia and East Africa.
• Most of the Pacific and Atlantic basins are experiencing average to above-average sea level rise.
• Many coastal areas outside of the U.S., Europe and Japan have too few tide gauges to be sure about long-term trends in regional sea level rise.

Is the rate of sea level rise accelerating?

• The IPCC expresses high confidence that the rate of observed sea level rise increased from the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. During the 20th century, sea level rose at an average rate of 4.8 to 8.8 inches per century (1.2-2.2 mm/year).
• Tide gauges show little or no acceleration during the 20th century.
• Satellite measurements estimate that sea level has been rising at a rate of 9 to 15 inches per century (2.4-3.8 mm/yr) since 1993, more than 50% faster than the rate that tide gauges estimate over the last century.

CD,
I am confronted here with the same contradiction I encounter elsewhere when global warming skeptics rely on the ideological arsenal of two very different counter-arguments in their attempts to argue against global warming:
1. there is no global warming (the MIT expert you refer to);
2. there is global warming but it is not cause by human factors.
These positions, if convenient in addressing different sets of data, are incompatible.
Please take a look at US forest fire data and note how many record years we have experienced in the last fifteen years:

Years with over 3 million acres of burnt forest and wild lands:
1969, 1976, 1980, 1988, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.....

Years with over 7 million acres burnt:
1963, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007.

These data are collected by the US National Interagency Fire Center, another largely non-ideological institution:
http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/fires_acres.htm
When responding to such data, the skeptics jump on the ideological position no.2 mentioned above. But when discussing rising sea levels, they often prefer ideological position no. 1. That, in itself, makes me doubt the credibility of their arguments.

[Ouled Nails]

And why should the number of tropical storms, of hurricanes and of major hurricanes have significantly increased as well?
All data for the USA only:

1. avg. number of tropical cyclones
2. avg. number of hurricanes
3. avg. number of major hurricanes

1966-2006:
1. 11.1 --2. 6.2 --3. 2.3

1977-2006:
1. 11.4 --2. 6.3 --3. 2.5

1987-2006:
1. 12.6 --2. 6.8 --3. 2.9

1997-2006:
1. 14.5 --2. 7.8 --3. 3.6
Source:
THE DEADLIEST, COSTLIEST, AND MOST INTENSE
UNITED STATES TROPICAL CYCLONES FROM 1851 TO 2006
(AND OTHER FREQUENTLY REQUESTED HURRICANE FACTS)

Eric S. Blake
Edward N. Rappaport
Christopher W. Landsea

National Weather Service
National Hurricane Center
Miami, Florida


April 2007

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

May I ask where is the correlation between Hurricanes and global warming? You mention forest fires - many of those in California have been set by arsonists - a few are caused by Lightning strikes. Then there is the problem of how Forest lands are managed. When a preponderance of brush is allowed to grow for years on end without the dead brush vegetation being cleared away, then the fuel for major conflagrations is present.

Major fires have swept through areas since before written record was established. Archaeological digs establish such. The effects of Hurricane devastation on people can be minimised by having people move away from coastal areas, establishing inundation zones - Moving New Orleans out from the below sea-level bowl that it is in. It is a crime to develop that area. Yes, people will be people and all most, if not all people love a view of the ocean. I take a risk by living in Hawaii - And I pay for it handsomely through elevated insurance premiums.

Back to the alarmism: Some governments, NGO's, political action and interest groups play on people's fears since the aformentioned groups know that many people are scientifically illiterate and/or ignorant. Then there are those whose research grant gravy train feedbag will be taken away if they do not publish findings that appease this and that *alphabet soup* research funding organizations. Its a sad situation that so many are scientifically illiterate - Because of that, they easily fall victim to carefully scripted agitation propaganda that serves to whip up hysteria.

[Ouled Nails]

Concerning forest fires, all the variables you refer to --including human factors-- are timeless thus, IMHO, irrelevant to the current trend upward. For instance, arsonists were active during the early 1930's for the sole reason to get a job amidst a deepening Great Depression. The whole arson-focused rationale used to explain Australia's recent tragedy, i.e., a psychological profile of the "impotent" arsonist, equally fails to explain why the same behavior did not generate similar catastrophes in previous decades.

IOW, anti-global warming arguments such as these are epiphenomenal: they fail to tackle the actual phenomenon. Not only that but, in the case of arsonists, they could easily result in miscarriages of justice because the fire generated by such human behavior is not necessarily what led to such conflagrations. Again, it's convenient but not convincing.

Forest fires have been increasing in numbers and in magnitude because there are more extensive and prolonged droughts. California is already rationing water (in early March!); Texas has been faced with early drought conditions as well. Elsewhere, in Argentina, Australia, South Africa, more droughts ....

I have got to go, sorry.

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

If we focus on upward and downward trends then it would be interesting to see data reflecting the period from the time of the Industrial Revolution until todays date. Again, it is too easy to just generate reams of data models based on pre-inputted inferences and then project that events *X,Y, and Z* are going to happen or are maybe in the process of happening.

Then there is the problem of where temperature-reading sensors are placed - some have been unfortunately placed near exhaust ducts or are located in metropolitain areas where much heat is generated by the Sun's rays being absorbed by the black-top and then re-radiated as heat or how buildings absorb or reflect Solar radiation, the throngs of people, car, trucks, machinery.

Imo, one must take the prognostications with much salt since too much of the science behind the propaganda is just that - Propaganda! If we lived in a perfect world with perfect systems and perfect knowlege, then it might be a different story.

[Ouled Nails]

I have appreciated this exchange of views, CD, if only to better understand our respective positions on "global warming" related issues.

If these issues turn out to be nothing more than the product of widespread scientific "malpractice," they could still contribute to R & D for cleaner and more efficient technologies, which is not such a bad outcome.

If, on the other hand, they prove fairly realistic, if not accurate, they could once again make life less costly and healthier for my grand-children and their children.

As long as "taking sides" does not result in complacency and indifference, I am satisfied that this little exchange was not a waste of time.
cheers

[Corno Dolce]

Aloha ON,

I have very much benefitted from the dialogue between us - A *growth phase* I would denote it as.

With sincere respect,

CD