Global Warming Opens Up Antarctic Waterways

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Please provide references from refereed journal articles for your remarks. My sense is the number of posts per day is going up [1].


References
1. Python, M., Posts Per Day Increasing on CF Global Warming Thread, J. of Argumentative Research, Vol. 3, No. 4, Apr, 2015.

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[SailOar]

Protecting [New York] City, Before Next Time | New York Times

November 2012

...But some experts in the field who have thought deeply about how to protect New York from huge storms like Hurricane Sandy — and especially from the coastal surges they produce — suggested that less intrusive forms of so-called soft infrastructure might prove more effective in sheltering the city than mammoth Venetian sea walls. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg seemed to agree with them on Thursday when he said: “I don’t think there’s any practical way to build barriers in the oceans. Even if you spent a fortune, it’s not clear to me that you would get much value for it.”...


Lower Manhattan
Marshy Edges, Absorptive Streets
Picture a fringe of mossy wetlands strapped like a beard to Lower Manhattan’s chin, and you are halfway toward imagining the plan to protect the financial district and its environs dreamed up by the architect Stephen Cassell and a team from his firm, Architecture Research Office, and a partner firm, dlandstudio.

“Our goal was to design a more resilient city,” Mr. Cassell said. “We may not always be able to keep the water out, so we wanted to improve the edges and the streets of the city to deal with flooding in a more robust way.”...

Red Hook and Gowanus
Oysters to the Rescue
The architect and landscape designer Kate Orff based her plan to shield the Red Hook and Gowanus neighborhoods of Brooklyn on the outsize powers of the oyster. “The era of big infrastructure is over,” Ms. Orff said. By placing her faith in a palm-size bivalve to reduce the effects of surging storms, Ms. Orff said, she is “blending urbanism and ecology” and also “looking to the past to reimagine the future.”

Red Hook, in particular, was thrashed by Hurricane Sandy as some of the local inlets, like the Buttermilk Channel and Gowanus Bay, spilled into the low-lying area, swamping public housing projects and sending water rushing so high through the streets it occasionally swallowed up cars and bicycles.

Ms. Orff’s proposal., created by a team at her design firm Scape/Landscape Architecture P.L.L.C., envisions a system of artificial reefs in the channel and the bay built out of rocks, shells and fuzzy rope that is intended to nurture the growth of oysters (she calls them “nature’s wave attenuators”)...

Staten Island
A Bridge in Troubled Waters

A few years ago, Lawrence J. Murphy, an engineer in the New York office of the global engineering firm CDM Smith, was asked by the local chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers to propose a way of protecting northern Staten Island from the forces of a Category 3 hurricane. He came up with a plan to build a classic storm-surge barrier across the Arthur Kill, the tidal strait that separates Staten Island from the mainland of New Jersey, designed to act in concert with similar barriers in the East River, the Narrows and the waters near the Rockaway Peninsula.

Staten Island was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, as entire neighborhoods were flooded, a 168-foot water tanker crashed onshore and city officials said that most of the fatalities in the city occurred there. It is arguably New York’s most exposed borough, surrounded not by peaceful rivers but by oceanic channels like the Arthur Kill and, of course, the Atlantic itself.
Mr. Murphy’s concept, created with his partner, Thomas Schoettle, calls for the construction of a damlike structure with suspension towers spanning the Arthur Kill. Tidal gates below the surface would open and close as needed.

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, Category 3 hurricanes (Hurricane Sandy was a Category 1 storm, downgraded by the time it reached New York) would produce surges of slightly more than 14 feet above normal sea levels. Mr. Murphy designed his barrier to protect against “overtopping waves” of an additional 8 feet, for a total height of 22 feet. He also designed a complex system of locks and drawbridges to accommodate the numerous commercial ships that navigate the kill. ...

[SailOar]

Massive Seawall May Be Needed to Keep New York City Dry | Scientific American

May 2014

Massive flood barriers may not be the most cost-effective way to control severe flooding from future Sandy-like storms in New York City, at least in the next two decades, according to a new analysis from Dutch and American researchers.

However, the city needs to be planning for those types of huge barriers more as part of a longer-term plan, and as preparation for the possibility that climate change and sea-level rise may be worse than expected, warns the analysis, published last week in Science. In the near term before 2040, the most cost-effective way to protect New York likely is a more modest combination of building improvements—such as raising new structures and home foundations—and smaller barrier methods to keep out water, such as small levees, the policy study finds.

"The city is on a good path ... but it needs to be studying the barriers," said Jeroen Aerts, a professor of risk management at the Institute for Environmental Studies in Amsterdam and lead author of the analysis, which also included researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. "Risks increase very rapidly due to climate change."

The researchers analyzed three main types of flooding controls—large storm-surge barriers of various types holding back water from New York Bay, building improvements only and a "hybrid approach" combining infrastructure improvements with small levees and beach fortifications. All have been discussed in city circles, although the idea of huge flood barriers is not moving forward at this point, said Aerts.

The team simulated 549 different types of storms, ranging from small ones to hurricanes larger than Superstorm Sandy, and estimated the average resulting annual expected flood losses. The average damage per year of the simulated storms was $174 million, while the extreme simulated examples hit closer to $25.4 billion. The model's damage estimates for storms of Sandy's size matched what actually occurred, according to the researchers.

'Hybrid' solution with small barriers affordable now
Assuming a "middle climate change" scenario of about a foot of sea-level rise by midcentury, the team further assessed the cost-effectiveness of each flood-control strategy by measuring whether its benefits, or avoided risk, would outweigh the investment costs....

Big flood barriers may be needed later
However, if climate change becomes worse than expected, and sea levels rise faster than projected, other huge flood barriers will become a viable financial option very quickly, he said. And midcentury and beyond, there likely will need to be large flood barriers combined with a more modest approach, regardless of what is cost-effective immediately, according to Aerts. In April, the American Geophysical Union released a study finding that the chance of storm-pushed water topping the Manhattan seawall is 20 times greater than 170 years ago, because of tide increases on top of sea-level rise....

[SailOar]

New York City Could See 6-Foot Sea Rise, Tripling of Heat Waves by 2100 | Scientific American

If left unconstrained, global warming could wreak havoc on the Big Apple
February 2015

Heat waves and floods caused by climate change could mean disaster for the Big Apple's five boroughs by the end of the century, with sea levels now predicted by a new report to climb by as much as 6 feet by 2100.

According to the New York City Panel on Climate Change, an independent body composed of climate scientists, New York could see a 6-foot increase under a worst-case scenario that has been revised from previous estimates that 2 to 4 feet would be the maximum rise.

The report also marked a new estimate for how hot it could become within the next 80 or so years, with the panel projecting a temperature increase as much as 8.8 degrees Fahrenheit and a tripling in the frequency of heat waves by the 2080s in the city....

The frequency of extreme precipitation is expected to jump, as well, with about 1½ times more events per year possible by the 2080s, the report said....

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by SailOar

New York City Could See 6-Foot Sea Rise, Tripling of Heat Waves by 2100 | Scientific American

If left unconstrained, global warming could wreak havoc on the Big Apple
February 2015

Blatant fear mongering in the extreme!!

[SailOar]

Sea Level Rise Projections and Impacts for New York

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

[SailOar]

Interactive Sea Level Rise Map for New York City Area | Geology.com

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Blatant fear mongering in the extreme!!

[LakeSuperior]

The generally accepted slope is 1.46 mm per year. This has been fairly constant for the last 150 years. Double the rate and its 10 inches in 85 more years. The rise in sea level would have to increase almost an order of magnitude to get to 6 feet.

[GordMay]

There can be a very large difference between Global conditions, and Local conditions.

The numbers that come out of climate models are global, representing the average change in sea level around the world.

However, it’s critical to know that sea level does not change uniformly across the globe. Local sea level rise is affected by complex oceanographic factors such as ocean currents and gravitational pulls, as well as the fact that in some places, coastal land is sinking (NYC), yet in other places, the land is rising.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study* was published in 2012, saying that the mid-Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Massachusetts has one of the fastest rates of sea level rise in the world, independent of vertical land movement (rising or sinking). The USGS study found that oceans are rising on the mid-Atlantic coast at three to four times the global rate of sea level rise.
* ➥ USGS Release: Sea Level Rise Accelerating in U.S. Atlantic Coast (6/24/2012 1:00:00 PM)

[senormechanico]

Gord,

What ever happened to "Water Seeks its Own Level" ??

[Lake-Effect]

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by GordMay

There can be a very large difference between Global conditions, and Local conditions.

The numbers that come out of climate models are global, representing the average change in sea level around the world.

However, it’s critical to know that sea level does not change uniformly across the globe. Local sea level rise is affected by complex oceanographic factors such as ocean currents and gravitational pulls, as well as the fact that in some places, coastal land is sinking (NYC), yet in other places, the land is rising.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study* was published in 2012, saying that the mid-Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Massachusetts has one of the fastest rates of sea level rise in the world, independent of vertical land movement (rising or sinking). The USGS study found that oceans are rising on the mid-Atlantic coast at three to four times the global rate of sea level rise.
* ➥ USGS Release: Sea Level Rise Accelerating in U.S. Atlantic Coast (6/24/2012 1:00:00 PM)

From this article..."During the 21st century, the increases in sea level rise rate that have already occurred in the hotspot will yield increases in sea level of 8 to 11.4 inches by 2100. This regional sea level increase would be in addition to components of global sea level rise."

The hotspot is a 600 mile long stretch of US coastline from Cape Hatteras, N.C. to north of Boston, Mass.

The forecast local 8 to 11.4 inch rise on top of the 1.4 mm/yr is still a long way from 6 feet. What the heck is going on...fear mongering I bet!

[Reefmagnet]

It was only a matter of time before subsidence and none climate change related sea level rise was blamed on AGW.

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[downunder]

Originally Posted by GordMay

There can be a very large difference between Global conditions, and Local conditions.

The numbers that come out of climate models are global, representing the average change in sea level around the world.

However, it’s critical to know that sea level does not change uniformly across the globe. Local sea level rise is affected by complex oceanographic factors such as ocean currents and gravitational pulls, as well as the fact that in some places, coastal land is sinking (NYC), yet in other places, the land is rising.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study* was published in 2012, saying that the mid-Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Massachusetts has one of the fastest rates of sea level rise in the world, independent of vertical land movement (rising or sinking). The USGS study found that oceans are rising on the mid-Atlantic coast at three to four times the global rate of sea level rise.
* ➥ USGS Release: Sea Level Rise Accelerating in U.S. Atlantic Coast (6/24/2012 1:00:00 PM)

Just can't believe that The Global warming crowd are now blaming New Yorks ocassional flooding on this. I would bet it has always happened historically.

Many cities around the world have similar problems but we humans have tended to build cities in places where storm conditions do maximum damage. Find something to blame. In Australia the city of Brisbane every 50 years has a major flooding event. Everything to do with us building on flood. plains.