Eaarth

[user removed]

Born in Norfolk. The most memorable storm was 1933 with water levels of 9.3 feet. Recent storm Isabel (7 years ago) was 8.3 feet. The highest water rise since English colonization was in 1749 at 15 feet. This storm according to word of mouth legend created Willoughby Spit where the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel crosses from Hampton to Norfolk. My grandmother (born 1889) used to tell us a storm made the spit and a storm will take it away. The 1933 storm wiped every structure off the spit except a brick Baptist Church.

7 years ago (Isabel) the sea level rise was reported to be 1.3 feet since the 1933 storm.
Isabel was a weak cat 1 storm, but the problem was wind direction which can pile up tide after tide if the storm lingers. Highest wind speed on record at Sewells Point was 124 MPH in 1944 before they started naming Hurricanes. I can only imagine what the 1749 storm was like, but a strong Cat 3 of Cat 4 storm that stalls at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay is the once in many centuries nightmare we all fear around the Tidewater area.

The mouth of Back River which separates Poquoson from Hampton was a peninsula when I graduated from high school in 1968, Now it is small island with many hundreds of yards of that same peninsula gone from a progression of Northeasters about 15 years ago. The repeated tides piled the water up in the bay, and when the wind shifted the mass of water cut through the peninsula. Now the water there is 5 feet deep where there used to be land about 100 yards wide.

regards
Mech

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

It has risen about 1 1/2 feet, there, I believe they said?

Maybe, there, you said you believe, they said... maybe?

I applaud your honesty in calling it your belief.

"Eaarth" = Indoctrinaation + Propaagandaa.

I reaaly love imaginaation aand creaativity. But not in spelling. Nor with the trendy pretense that propaganda and indoctrination is hard science.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Miami FL cannot get by with building dikes -- the land is porous limestone/corral and the water will come in under them. Once this gets high enough, the city will probably have to be abandoned. India is already building a wall to try and keep the Bangladeshis out; as their land floods.

The Navy is very concerned, too and we need to realize why this is happening, and begin to do something.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Mmm, hmm.

Listen to the On Point show for yourself:

Media Player | WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook

No, thanks.

"I read this in a book, and I heard that on the radio so it must be true!"

Yeah, sure. As if any piece promoted in the media makes its content true...

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

It has risen about 1 1/2 feet, there, I believe they said?

I'm looking for facts, not beliefs.

From hearing part of the radio talk - I won't be spending 45 minutes on it - it's mostly tidal.
So it could just as well be that the usual amount of water being pushed into Chesapeak Bay at high tide simply has no place to go anymore ?
That's what has been happening anywhere where dikes have been put up and land raised to counter flooding.

We've seen it here after the Dutch went ahead with their famous Scheldt Delta plan.
They closed off a major arm of the river delta, making more of the tidal water pour into the remaining, open arm of the Scheldt river, flooding Belgium at high tide and with NW winds.

The more entrances you close off from the water, the higher the water will get elsewhere.
We're now seeing a reversal of policy, where areas that traditionally got flooded, are once again allowed to flood at high tide, reducing the impact elsewhere.

If a river's ability to transport mud out to sea is hindered, the mud stays behind, reducing total water content in the delta, raising flood tide.
A delta that isn't tampered with by humans, changes constantly, forming and then reclaiming islands as water seeks the easiest way to the sea.

It is about half from each cause (sinking land is about 6-7 inches, and the rest is rising water).

So a mere 10" increase is already overwhelming the dikes around Norfolk ???

There are at least two island nations that are starting to plan to move their people to other land.

They live on the kind of low islands that have always appeared and then vanished (rather: submerged)
How long have these islands been lived on ?

shorelines will move significantly, salt water will infiltrate more groundwater -- this is already happening.

Small wonder : it has always happened.

We could sail from the sea into Bruges in Medieval times, until the water gradually retreated and the sea inlet sanded, some 600 years ago.
Where did the water go then ?And why ?

You can still get to Bruges by boat, but it'll be through canals for the entire trip.
Most people around here don't realize that most of what they see as the shoreline, is artificial. It's been reclaimed from the sea as it retreated.

The shoreline around Chesapeak Bay extends inland for well over 100 miles judging by Google Earth.
It was shaped by the sea, and the sea continues to do so - only those humans got in its way ...

Miami FL cannot get by with building dikes -- the land is porous limestone/corral and the water will come in under them.

AFAIK, the entire Florida coastline was formed that way, and is constantly being reformed, through erosion by the sea.
Nothing new.
Except they built Miami in the meantime without asking for Ma Nature's advice.

Once this gets high enough, the city will probably have to be abandoned. India is already building a wall to try and keep the Bangladeshis out; as their land floods.

Bangladesh / East Pakistan has always flooded.
It's flat and has no natural defense against the seas.
The earliest natural distaster that I personally recall being reported when I was a kid, is actually one of the many floodings in Bangladesh.
Nothing changes, nothing stays the same.


The floodings don't really get worse, their consequences do however as more people go and live in natural flooding areas despite the risks.
And any natural disaster gets far more coverage than even 5 years ago as it fits the GW theme.
Even if it doesn't , it'll be reported as such anyway.
You've surely noticed that any weather phenomenon or natural disaster is nowadays blamed on GW ?
Well, all except Eyjafjallajokull.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by euromodder

You've surely noticed that any weather phenomenon or natural disaster is nowadays blamed on GW ?
Well, all except Eyjafjallajokull.

Yep.

Even the 5 feet of snow in my garden was blamed on AGW by someone from the Met office this morning on the BBC. The same Met office that said it wouldn't happen and this winter would be mild.

My sides are still hurting and I still have to wipe coffee off my TV.

[euromodder]

For the record, in Belgium it has been the coldest 1 December in 135 years.

We'll need all that oil for the coming ice-age

[user removed]

I remember in 1982 in the Florida Keys when they were worried about the sea water temperature dropping to the point where it would kill the coral reefs that had been there for a very long time, possibly millions of years.

regards
Mech

[NeilBlanchard]

The insurance companies must be believing the hype, and they are giving up on the profits they could earn? And the Navy spent $60-80 million per wharf for nothing?

In Norfolk, the tides did not use to come up above flood stage with regularity -- they do now. Last spring it was flooded for 45 days out of 90; but the water is not rising?

Fisheries are dieing. Corral reefs are bleaching. The pH of the ocean has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 and probably will drop to 7.8 by 2100. Already it is more corrosive than at any time in the past 800,000 years, and by 2050, it will be more acidic than any time in the past 20,000,000 years. Plankton has decreased by 40% since the 1950's. Water evaporation is ~5% greater than it used to be, so yes rain and snow storms have greater intensity and more volume of precipitation. There is also more lightening and they start more fires. Moscow burned for the first time in human memory. The wheat crop in many places almost collapsed. The boreal forests are dead and dieing -- dead trees as far as the eye can see. Methane is being released at a huge rate from melting tundra and "permafrost" is not permanent after all. The Arctic ice has dropped by about 40% below the 1979-2000 average. Russia, Canada, the USA and others are starting to bicker over mineral right on the Arctic Ocean floor. Droughts are now the norm in many places. The tropics are now larger by more than 2 degrees north and 2 degrees south latitude, adding 8.5 million square miles to the tropics. Lake Mead (which supplies water to California, one of the world's largest economies) may dry up in 10-20 years. They got no rains in parts of the Middle East this November. Glaciers have started melting at faster and faster rates; and Glacier National Park is down to 25 glaciers from 150 when the park opened.

But things are the same as they have always been?

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

But things are the same as they have always been?

That's the whole point !
Things aren't staying the same, and that's a constant in Earth's history.

BTW : the old pH values aren't measured directly. They are estimates or simulations.
I pick one source of information and it's using estimated data "corrected" for estimated antropogenic influence from the get go !

You can guess and estimate when developing a new theory.
You can't however guesstimate when trying to prove the theory.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by euromodder

You can guess and estimate when developing a new theory.
You can't however guesstimate when trying to prove the theory.

You haven't focused on the essential nature of the claim: It is not being marketed as a theory. It is a belief.

Just read any of Neil's numerous posts. The whole thrust of it is to try to persuade us to accept the premise that "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

OK. So let it fall...