Ocean acidifcation .

[Exile]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

I think that sea level is definitely rising, I have not run aground for at least five years now. Rising sea levels must be the only reason.

Sometimes that extra 15mm can make all the difference!

[Marc1]

i also thought that the sea had risen in the last few years since I have not heard the shallow water alarm for a while now.
Lately found it to be disconnected.
Ignorance is bliss ... sometimes

[newhaul]

And then the MMGWC post articles like this that are blatant lies

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/13/sea-level-rise/

The first paragraph says it all ( it doesn't pass the CRAAP test or the sniff test )

Sea level has been stable, at current levels, throughout recorded history for 5,000 years. That’s about to change. Still, it’s very difficult for people to imagine a change in sea level after 5,000 years of rock solid stability.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

And then the MMGWC post articles like this that are blatant lies
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/13/sea-level-rise/

The first paragraph says it all (it doesn't pass the CRAAP test or the sniff test )
"Sea level has been stable, at current levels, throughout recorded history for 5,000 years. That’s about to change. Still, it’s very difficult for people to imagine a change in sea level after 5,000 years of rock solid stability."

The article, to which newhaul so strenuously objects is “Sea Level Rise!” by Robert Hunziker, in which he (Hunziker) states (actually paraphrases John Englander’s R.I. presentation) that sea level has been relatively stable for 5,000 years*.

Unlike other media such as CNN, Fox News, Nature etc, the CruisersForum doesn't practice any form of intellectual or scientific censorship (other that "be nice" & "no politics"), nor do we indulge in any policy of False Equivalency or False Balance.
newhaul is free (& encouraged) to try to refute the information in Hunziker's article, or in Englander's presentation - or just let his vituperative denunciation stand as mere unsupported opinion.

“Sea level and global ice volumes from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene” ~ by Kurt Lambeck et al.
“... The rise in sea levels seen over the past century is unmatched by any period in the past 6,000 years, according to a lengthy analysis* (Lambeck et al.) of historical sea level trends.
The reconstruction of 35,000 years of sea level fluctuations finds that there is no evidence that levels changed by more than 20cm, in a relatively steady period, that lasted between 6,000 years ago and about 150 years ago...”
* ➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/111/43/15296

Announcment: Rising sea level: The crisis on our doorstep (Monday, February 11, 2019)
John Englander highlighted some surprising scientific aspects of sea level rise, including the latest projections for the coming decades, eventually many meters above present. He explained why sea level rise can no longer be stopped, and why it is urgent that we commence intelligent adaptation as a high priority.
➥ https://www.rigb.org/whats-on/events...sing-sea-level

John Englander’s presentation:

Sea level rise can no longer be stopped, so it is urgent that we commence intelligent adaptation as a high priority, argues John Englander.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvqY2NcBWI8

The post-speach Q & A:

What proportion of seal level rise is attributable to greenhouse gases? Is it possible that seal levels will ever return to the levels they were at 200,000 years ago? John Englander answers audience questions following his talk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFMGyvHJrX8

Englander’s follow-up comments:
Lesson from London: Catastrophe Causes Change (Feb 11/19) ➥ https://www.johnenglander.net/sea-le...causes-change/
Monday night I had the very real privilege to give a lecture at the Royal Institution in London, the “RI.” Since 1799 this has been a legendary location to explain scientific principles to a wide audience. Famously this is where Michael Faraday demonstrated magnetism, induction, and the basis for electric motors. I did my demonstrations and spoke from Faraday’s Desk; quite a sense of history in that. It was very well attended and the audience was excellent with great questions and comments.

Particularly relevant to climate change, in 1859, Faraday’s successor, John Tyndall demonstrated at the “RI”, the power of carbon dioxide and the other “greenhouse gases” to trap heat, now well known to cause warming of the atmosphere. It was quite an experience for me to be explaining the effects of that warming on rising sea level in the very same room, 160 years later.

In doing some research for this presentation, I found that back in 1859 it was not the carbon dioxide in the air that had London’s attention. It was the terrible smell. This was the peak of “the great stink.” The Thames River literally served as the sewer for human waste, rotting food and animals.

The prevailing attitude among the leaders of the day – elected and business – had been that solving the sewer problem “was just too difficult and expensive” to solve. Until it became intolerable and deadly.

The stench and deaths from the cholera epidemic finally caused Parliament to push past the concerns about cost and disruption. Sir Joseph Bazalgette led the engineering project that was eventually copied in every city worldwide.

In a similar pattern, during the 20th century, disastrous and deadly building fires got worse as the size and density of buildings increased. In various major cities from London to New York and Chicago, numerous deaths caused leaders to act, creating new regulations requiring automatic sprinkler systems in most buildings, despite the “burdensome cost.” With sewer systems and sprinkler systems, no single property owner or financial interest could solve the problem without hurting their competitiveness. It took government regulation to establish a broader regime for the common good.

Coastal Storms and Flooding

Coastal storms have always been destructive as well. One example was the North Sea Flood of February 1, 1953, which hit both Britain and the Netherlands. Giant waves from a rapid windstorm happened to hit at a peak spring tide (king tide), and coincided with a low-pressure system; as the saying goes, “a perfect storm.” The sea reached 5.6 meters (18 feet) above normal during the night. A major levee in the Netherlands was breached killing 1,836. In the U.K. 307 died and 28 in Belgium. That single event led to the design, funding, and construction of these engineering marvels, the Thames Barrier and the Rotterdam harbor gate, the Maeslantkering.

Sea Level Rise and Global Warming are Different

Today we are facing another looming catastrophe, but there is a big difference. With the sewage system, with fire sprinklers, and the storm barriers, the problem was effectively solved through engineering and regulation. Now with the warming climate, rising sea level and changing global weather patterns due to the melting Arctic sea ice, things will not “return to normal” any time soon. There is no quick fix. In fact, even if we went 100% renewable energy “today” the heat already stored in the ocean will continue to melt the glaciers causing sea level to rise dramatically well into the next century. That is why if we are to avert disaster it is URGENT that we tackle these issues with a multi-pronged global approach:
- vastly accelerate global efforts to slow the warming by getting off carbon-based fuels, to hopefully slow the rate of sea level rise and massive species die-off
- do research to look at ways to remove the excess carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere
- begin radical adaptation to raise our building codes and infrastructure to accommodate much higher sea level

The lesson of history says that we do not change our ways until AFTER the disaster pushes us to accept the disruption and the cost. As I made the case last night at the Royal Institute in London, it is urgent that all aspects of society understand this problem. With understanding, we can create the political will to stop the warming and start to invent and construct a world that can manage with sea level many feet (meters) above present. Most will say this is “impossible.” We have no choice. Not trying is immoral. it will be a great challenge, perhaps mankind’s greatest ever.

This week in London and up to Liverpool I will be making that case with the British engineering and maritime sectors. This is one of the major focuses of the nonprofit International Sea Level Institute, to inform the various professions with what they need to know to rise to this challenge, BEFORE catastrophe strikes.

About John Englander ➥ https://www.johnenglander.net/bio-john-englander/
Englander’s book "High Tide On Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis" is available to buy now: https://geni.us/wQ41O1m

[Reefmagnet]

So who you gunna believe?

Someone riding the gravy train doing the talk circuits whilst flogging books telling us that " tomorrow, things will be different" vs someone with no dog in the fight looking out their (boat) window.

Perhaps if these gravy trainers did something practical , I dunno, like maybe collating and analysing tide gauge data and/or maybe even analysing tide height predictions instead of theoretical modelling and declaring that "the sky is falling" they wouldn't be perceived as the charlatans they appear to be by some members of the general community.

And, fwiw, any so called scientist that peddles the concept of Antarctica losing its ice sheet within a century deserves the all the criticism they should rightly receive.

[jackdale]

Please provide evidence that Englanders presentation fails the CRAAP, using specific cited references for each section of the test.

Originally Posted by newhaul

And then the MMGWC post articles like this that are blatant lies

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/13/sea-level-rise/

The first paragraph says it all ( it doesn't pass the CRAAP test or the sniff test )

Sea level has been stable, at current levels, throughout recorded history for 5,000 years. That’s about to change. Still, it’s very difficult for people to imagine a change in sea level after 5,000 years of rock solid stability.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by jackdale

Please provide evidence that Englanders presentation fails the CRAAP, using specific cited references for each section of the test.

the first paragraph is all the evidence needed . We know that there has been a natural sea level rise of approx 15 mm in the last century

It says that sea levels have been essentially static for the last 5k years when we know there has been an approximate 2.5 meter rise in that time.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by GordMay

* * *

Now with the warming climate, rising sea level and changing global weather patterns due to the melting Arctic sea ice, things will not “return to normal” any time soon. There is no quick fix. In fact, even if we went 100% renewable energy “today” the heat already stored in the ocean will continue to melt the glaciers causing sea level to rise dramatically well into the next century. That is why if we are to avert disaster it is URGENT that we tackle these issues with a multi-pronged global approach:

- vastly accelerate global efforts to slow the warming by getting off carbon-based fuels, to hopefully slow the rate of sea level rise and massive species die-off
- do research to look at ways to remove the excess carbon dioxide that is already in the atmosphere
- begin radical adaptation to raise our building codes and infrastructure to accommodate much higher sea level

The lesson of history says that we do not change our ways until AFTER the disaster pushes us to accept the disruption and the cost. As I made the case last night at the Royal Institute in London, it is urgent that all aspects of society understand this problem. With understanding, we can create the political will to stop the warming and start to invent and construct a world that can manage with sea level many feet (meters) above present. Most will say this is “impossible.” We have no choice. Not trying is immoral. it will be a great challenge, perhaps mankind’s greatest ever.

Speaking only for myself, I can't necessarily discount this expert's warnings. And some of his comments even sound refreshingly responsible, something sorely lacking from all too many proponents. Except not only are we being told that we're past the point of no return (or that it's coming in 10 12 years), but the adaptation & technology he advocates for is often roundly condemned by the diehards. For ideologues, it's more about a hatred for fossil fuels in their own right, and because it represents the evils they associate with the capitalist system and the oil industry which is its backbone. Fine, glue yourselves to walls. But also understand that most people are much more rational (and have much better things to do).

So like any true believers that so often try and simplify the inherently complex, it's all or nothing. This is why I think any discussion about the obvious & compelling cost-benefit analyses that are part & parcel of any solution are ignored or angrily dismissed. Or why some oppose carbon sequestration technologies because it may not sufficiently discourage fossil fuel consumption. Or why the viability of renewable energy is so often exaggerated. Or perhaps the biggest deception of all, namely why they don't want the public to know that there could possibly be any forces, other than CC, affecting warming, sea level rise, or other potentially destructive events, even though such natural forces are well known within the science itself.

Instead, we read and hear from the self-anointed holders of "THE SCIENCE" that doubters & skeptics must be, among other slurs, "anti-science." Or, as Gord suggests here, that challenges to THE science they happen to prefer should be censored as "anti-scientific" or "anti-intellectual," as if that is akin to the "be nice" or "no politics" rules on CF. I would suggest that there'd be far more of the political will that John Englander advocates for if citizens along the US e. coast had been honestly told that land subsidence is predicted to be 2.5x more to blame for future sea level rise than CC, a "movement" that -- whether right or wrong -- has lost credibility for being too closely associated with more extreme if not radical ideologies.

[GordMay]

The past 5 - 6,000 years look relatively stable, to me.


Figure 4.13: Holocene Sea Level curve showing the most recent period of rise and warming. Some of these data suggest that sea levels approached modern around 6,000 years ago, but may have actually exceeded modern sea levels in some regions (i.e., Malacca), but, on average, sea levels have been relatively slow to rise and have been fairly stable for at least the last few thousand years.
Credit: Image created by Robert A. Rohde

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by GordMay

The past 5 - 6,000 years look relatively stable, to me.

2 meters of rise is not stable as he stated his defining of stable so he lied.

[ImaginaryNumber]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0129154007.htm

[GordMay]

2 meters of rise is not stable as he stated his defining of stable so he lied.

Neither John Englander nor Robert Hunziker lied about a relatively stable sea level, over the past 6,000 millennia.

Two meteres (2,000mm) variation, over 6,000 years, equates to 1/3mm per year.
Our current rate of sea level rise is about 3.4 mm annually; which would extrapolate to over 20 metres (20,000mm+) over 6,000 years. I’m not predicting this level of rise, just providing a little perspective.

Sea level rise (SLR) is happening faster and faster, almost entirely due to the melting of glaciers on land in the Arctic and in Antarctica. A few decades ago, the doubling time for SLR was more than forty years. Now it is less than 20. Many experts believe it could get as short as ten years in the coming decades.
Over the last century the global average for SLR was 1.7 mm a year, or about a sixteenth of an inch, though there are huge variations by location, mostly due to vertical land movement.
The rate has now doubled to 3.4 mm or about an eighth of an inch annually.
Let’s follow the hypothetical case of it doubling every decade.
In ten years the current eighth of an inch would be a quarter inch each year. A decade later it would be a half inch per year. Then an inch, in another decade. Then 2, then four, then 8, etc. The stunning fact is that with a doubling time of ten years, in 50 years sea level would have risen more than 5 feet.
Though, frankly, there is no way to know precisely the future acceleration rate of SLR, because of the uncertainty of how quickly the ice sheets will melt. Nonetheless, if it continues on it’s current path it will mean global catastrophe by the end of this century.
Looking at the geologic record, sea level rose dramatically, in a relatively short period of time. Fourteen thousand years ago, sea level rose some 65 feet (nearly 20m) in just four centuries. That’s an average of more than a foot and half (half metre) every decade.

Put in context, a couple metre’s variation, over 600 decades, begins to seem relatively minor.

Some more light reading (for the interested):

“Ice sheet contributions to future sea-level rise from structured expert judgment” ~ by Jonathan L. Bamber et al.
“ We find that a global total SLR exceeding 2 m by 2100 (80 years) lies within the 90% uncertainty bounds for a high emission scenario. This is more than twice the upper value put forward by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the Fifth Assessment Report ...”
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/116/23/11195

“Unabated global mean sea-level rise over the satellite altimeter era” ~ Christopher S. Watson et al.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2635

The above study is behind a paywall (Abstact available), so here’s a ‘Science Magazine’ article describing the findings.
➥ https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015...faster-thought

[Exile]

The poster on the bridge below says "I WANT YOU TO PANIC and take action to ABOLISH CARPITALISM."

Kinda says it all, no?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49338859

This time the protesters used chains as opposed to super glue to fasten themselves onto the tracks, so the train carrying all those new CO2-emitting VWs was delayed for several hours as opposed to minutes. While the police freed them from their capitalist "bondage" that is.

[GordMay]

... I would suggest that there'd be far more of the political will that John Englander advocates for if citizens along the US e. coast had been honestly told that land subsidence is predicted to be 2.5x more to blame for future sea level rise than CC ...

Except, that it’s just not so.

Rising and Sinking Land - Isostatic Adjustment
In some regions subsidence may account for more than half of the relative sea level rise (RSLR), in others much less.
In other areas, rebound will reduce the relative sea level rise.

To make accurate estimates of sea-level rise, changes in gravitation at the local and regional level must be balanced against the gradual, and linear, recovery of ocean basins from the last ice age (glacial isostatic adjustment - GIA). The widening of these basins as they slowly spring upward can cause sea levels to drop (lowering apparent sea level by about 0.3 millimeters per year).
Land subsidence increases the rate of relative sea-level rise (the combined elevation changes are termed relative sea-level rise), and helps explain why the southern Chesapeake Bay region, for instance, has the highest rate of sea-level rise on the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

In the Southern Chesapeake, for instance, relative sea-level rise has been 3.5 to 4.4 mm/yr. Land subsidence, measured to be 1.1 to 4.8 mm/yr, causes more than half the relative sea-level rise - but not all of it. Aquifer-system compaction, estimated to be 1.5 to 3.7 mm/yr, can explain the majority of observed land subsidence.

The role played by the subsidence of certain low-lying coastal areas can have a far greater local effect than the eustatic rise of the sea. The combined sea-level rise and land subsidence (Relative SLR - RSLR) will almost certainly make the greatest impact on coastal societies.

Groundwater and hydrocarbon extraction, as well as microbial oxidation and soil compaction related to agriculture, are among the human contributions to subsidence. Tectonic forces, including post-glacial rebound, are among the natural causes.

Meanwhile, Northern regions experience uplift from deglaciation, resulting in an apparent lessening in relative sea level rise. It affects northern Europe, especially Scotland and Scandinavia, Siberia, Canada, and the Northeast USA.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Except, that it’s just not so.

Rising and Sinking Land - Isostatic Adjustment
In some regions subsidence may account for more than half of the relative sea level rise (RSLR), in others much less.
In other areas, rebound will reduce the relative sea level rise.

To make accurate estimates of sea-level rise, changes in gravitation at the local and regional level must be balanced against the gradual, and linear, recovery of ocean basins from the last ice age (glacial isostatic adjustment - GIA). The widening of these basins as they slowly spring upward can cause sea levels to drop (lowering apparent sea level by about 0.3 millimeters per year).
Land subsidence increases the rate of relative sea-level rise (the combined elevation changes are termed relative sea-level rise), and helps explain why the southern Chesapeake Bay region, for instance, has the highest rate of sea-level rise on the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

In the Southern Chesapeake, for instance, relative sea-level rise has been 3.5 to 4.4 mm/yr. Land subsidence, measured to be 1.1 to 4.8 mm/yr, causes more than half the relative sea-level rise - but not all of it. Aquifer-system compaction, estimated to be 1.5 to 3.7 mm/yr, can explain the majority of observed land subsidence.

The role played by the subsidence of certain low-lying coastal areas can have a far greater local effect than the eustatic rise of the sea. The combined sea-level rise and land subsidence (Relative SLR - RSLR) will almost certainly make the greatest impact on coastal societies.

Groundwater and hydrocarbon extraction, as well as microbial oxidation and soil compaction related to agriculture, are among the human contributions to subsidence. Tectonic forces, including post-glacial rebound, are among the natural causes.

Meanwhile, Northern regions experience uplift from deglaciation, resulting in an apparent lessening in relative sea level rise. It affects northern Europe, especially Scotland and Scandinavia, Siberia, Canada, and the Northeast USA.

I thought we already covered a lot of this a page or two ago. Much of it came from this article from Scientific American that Newhaul cited. As you note, these natural phenomena that affect relative sea level rise vary worldwide, but are thought to be exacerbating the effects of sea level rise along large portions of the US e. coast. Sea level rise alone seems to be accepted at ~1"/decade, but combined with the effects of land subsidence, relative sea level rise can be as much as 3.5" or even 4.5" per decade in certain areas. This is all from the Scientific American article and other sources cited therein.

So how is this "not so" for the region in question? And why would it matter if the subsidence was mainly due to human factors? The fact remains that the majority of relative sea level rise in these areas is apparently not from GW. At least according to the "science" that's been cited. I wouldn't be surprised if there was other "science" that reported it differently.